Blackhawks veteran Foligno calls out the entire team for pathetic game, including Bedard

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Liam McCormick
January 1, 2024 (2:33 PM)

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When Nick Foligno signed on to join this years' edition of the Chicago Blackhawks, he knew he was taking on a leadership role and a veteran presence for a rebuilding team - and more importantly a mentorship for their generational rookie Connor Bedard. Even with the addition of the phenomenal talent in Bedard, it was expected that the Blackhawks would be an awful team, but Nick Foligno's recent comments clearly show he's still not happy about it.

After a brutal 8-1 loss to the Dallas Stars yesterday, Foligno went off in his postgame comments. Beginning with even their preparation for the game, Foligno said the team was immature and ignorant of their responsibilities.

Foligno went on to say how the young Hawks team needs to learn from an experience this bad, even making note of how many fans they let down with a performance that poor.

Foligno kept going with the criticism too. After the Blackhawks had a couple of encouraging games heading into the Christmas break, Foligno said he thought the team had turned a corner and learned how to compete in games at the NHL level. He even recognized the fact that the team isn't good, and that they may not be able to win every game, but performances like yesterdays are unacceptable to him, and they should be for everyone else as well.

This call-out clearly applies to the entire team, including rookie Connor Bedard. As the team's best player, he has influence as a leader, and he also can't let games get so out of hand as they did against Dallas. The team needs to put up a fight at all times and never roll over like they did. Looking at the Philadelphia Flyers for inspiration of a lesser skilled team that still battles, it's still possible to win games with any roster as long as it's a team effort.