{"id":480416,"date":"2025-12-20T22:12:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T03:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=480416"},"modified":"2025-12-20T22:14:43","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T03:14:43","slug":"chicago-blackhawks-lose-another-key-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/12\/20\/chicago-blackhawks-lose-another-key-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Blackhawks Lose Another Key Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The injury hits keep coming for the<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/12\/20\/nhl-predictions-senators-saturday-afternoon-edition-chicago-blackhawks-ottawa\/\" target=\"_self\"> Chicago Blackhawks<\/a>. <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/2025\/12\/20\/chicago-blackhawks-frank-nazar-injury\/?utm_social_handle_id=did%3Aplc%3Aqjj44p47avghsz4iqbhutwsr&amp;utm_social_post_id=629361748\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">News emerged<\/a> on Saturday that forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/n\/nazarfr01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-12-20_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Frank Nazar<\/a> is injured and will be out for at least a month. This news was confirmed by Chicago head coach Jeff Blashill after Saturday&#8217;s 6-4 loss to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/12\/20\/the-ottawa-senators-look-strong-in-thomas-chabots-return\/\" target=\"_self\">Ottawa Senators.<\/a> This was after Nazar was hit in the face with the puck.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"bluesky-embed\" data-bluesky-uri=\"at:\/\/did:plc:qjj44p47avghsz4iqbhutwsr\/app.bsky.feed.post\/3mahl24gvex2q\" data-bluesky-cid=\"bafyreie2335gkffezxkhuduipuas4x6235lria6krlhrri35bcgfn3ycnq\">\n<p>Blackhawks center Frank Nazar will miss an estimated four weeks after being hit in the face with the puck in a 6-4 loss to the Senators on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; <a  href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/did:plc:qjj44p47avghsz4iqbhutwsr?ref_src=embed\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chicago Tribune Sports (@chicagosports.bsky.social)<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/did:plc:qjj44p47avghsz4iqbhutwsr\/post\/3mahl24gvex2q?ref_src=embed\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2025-12-21T01:30:06.859013Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/embed.bsky.app\/static\/embed.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Chicago Blackhawks Forward Frank Nazar Injured; Will Miss Four Weeks<\/h2>\n<p>In the first period of Saturday&#8217;s game against Ottawa, Senators&#8217; blueliner <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/spencjo01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-12-20_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jordan Spence<\/a> shot a puck into the zone and hit off <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/bertuty01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-12-20_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tyler Bertuzzi<\/a>&#8216;s stick. The puck was deflected inadvertently and that hit Nazar in the jaw. A laceration formed on the young American centre&#8217;s face, and he skated right into the tunnel.<\/p>\n<p>The 21-year-old has only played for the Blackhawks across parts of three NHL season. Nazar&#8217;s had a slow season with six goals and 15 assists for 21 points in 32 games so far. The Detroit native is averaging 18 minutes, 46 seconds of ice time. He has a Corsi for of 48.7 and a relative Corsi of 2.0.<\/p>\n<p>Nazar has 19 goals and 29 assists for 48 points in 88 career games. Chicago originally drafted Nazar in the first round, 13th overall in the 2022 NHL Draft. He&#8217;s also won gold for his native United States and the 2024 World Juniors and the 2025 IIHF World Championships.<\/p>\n<h3>What It Means<\/h3>\n<p>Things are going from bad to worse for the Blackhawks, who are already without <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/bedarco01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-12-20_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Connor Bedard<\/a>. The Blackhawks dropped their fifth straight game when they lost to the Senators on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Chicago was showing plenty of promise in the early portion of the season. However, the loss of Bedard has caused the Blackhawks to go into a tailspin. Losing the team&#8217;s second-line pivot is only going to make things worse.<\/p>\n<p>The Blackhawks host the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/12\/20\/nhl-predictions-december-20th-new-york-rangers-philadelphia-flyers\/\" target=\"_self\">Philadelphia Flyers<\/a> on Tuesday night in the final game before the holiday break. However, Chicago will hope to go into the festive season with a victory.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main photo by: Stephen R. Sylvanie-Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The injury hits keep coming for the Chicago Blackhawks. News emerged on Saturday that forward Frank Nazar is injured and will be out for at least a month. This news was confirmed by Chicago head coach Jeff Blashill after Saturday&#8217;s 6-4 loss to the Ottawa Senators. This was after Nazar was hit in the face [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2352,"featured_media":449295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27,4547,6671,34,4548],"tags":[5909,4756,7134,1576],"class_list":["post-480416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blackhawks","category-hockey","category-injuries","category-news","category-nhl","tag-chicago-blackhawks-news","tag-connor-bedard","tag-frank-nazar","tag-injury"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480416"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":480422,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480416\/revisions\/480422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}