Bedard scores 20th, Blackhawks top Flyers to end 7-game skid

CHICAGO -- Connor Bedard scored his 20th goal of the season and had an assist for the Chicago Blackhawks in a 7-4 victory against the Philadelphia Flyers at United Center on Sunday.

Ryan Donato scored two power-play goals, Joe Veleno scored his first goal with the Blackhawks and had an assist, and Tyler Bertuzzi had a goal and two assists for Chicago (21-41-9), which had lost seven in a row. Spencer Knight made 24 saves.

“Obviously, it’s been a tough stretch of games for us,” said Blackhawks forward Patrick Maroon, who had a goal and an assist . “It’s not a 1-0 game, but we found a way to win and come back.”

Jamie Drysdale and Travis Konecny each had a goal and an assist for the Flyers (28-35-9), who are 0-4-1 in their past five games. Ivan Fedotov allowed seven goals on 29 shots after being pulled in a 3-2 overtime loss at the Dallas Stars on Saturday, when he allowed two goals on three shots.

“We put together some good efforts in previous games, not tonight,” Drysdale said. “I really don’t have an answer as to why. Yeah, we’ve got to figure out a way to come out with that win, be consistent in our game.

“We absolutely had a stinker tonight. So, yeah, live, learn from it.”

Drysdale gave Philadelphia a 1-0 lead at 3:59 of the first period when his shot from the right point deflected into the net off Blackhawks defenseman Louis Crevier.

Maroon tied it 1-1 at 7:14. Nick Foligno’s backhand pass from the right face-off circle found Maroon open in front of the net for a tap-in.

Veleno put the Blackhawks ahead 2-1 at 8:01, skating into a drop pass from Bertuzzi and scoring with a wrist shot from the right circle. Veleno was acquired by Chicago in a trade with the Detroit Red Wings for Craig Smith and Petr Mrazek on March 7.

Travis Sanheim tied it 2-2 at 8:13 with a shot from the right point. It was his first goal since Dec. 14.

“Tonight we kind of opened ourselves up a little bit, thought that we could maybe play a little bit more of a run-and-gun, back-and-forth,” Sanheim said. “That’s just not how we can play, it doesn’t matter who we’re playing against.”

The Flyers went ahead 3-2 at 11:59 after Bobby Brink jammed in Noah Cates’ feed to the crease.

Bedard tied it again 3-3 at 18:12 of the first. He picked up the puck in the left circle off a face-off, skated into the slot and buried a wrist shot over Fedotov’s glove.

Bertuzzi gave Chicago a 4-3 lead at 2:37 of the second period. Veleno’s backhand centering pass from the right corner deflected off Philipp Kurashev to the stick of Bertuzzi, who moved in and scored with a backhand. It was Bertuzzi's 300th NHL point.

Donato made it 5-3 at 6:43, tipping in Teuvo Teravainen’s shot during a 5-on-3 power play, but Konecny cut it to 5-4 at 10:14 with a deflection of Drysdale's shot.

Donato responded with his second power-play goal to push it to 6-4 at 13:27 of the second. He tapped in a feed from Teravainen at the top of the crease for his 25th goal of the season.

“I mean, I always have confidence in myself, right?” said Donato, whose previous NHL career high was 16 goals (with the Seattle Kraken in 2021-22). “But you just kind of pray that good things happen and you just do the hard work. I set goals for myself -- I'm not going to share with you guys -- but I just share goals for myself. But at the end of the day, it's obviously super exciting, and I'm very fortunate to do that.”

Lukas Reichelscored at 2:13 of the third period for the 7-4 final.

“I’m not going to overthink a game like this,” Flyers coach John Tortorella said. “You could almost sense it was going to happen.”

NOTES: Forward Matvei Michkov had two assists and has 50 points (20 goals, 30 assists) in 70 games this season. He is the first Flyers player age 20 or younger to get at least 50 points in a season since Simon Gagne in 2000-01 (54 points in 61 games). ... The Blackhawks scored seven goals for the first time since March 12, 2024. … Bedard is the fifth Blackhawks player in the past 20 years to start his career with consecutive 20-goal seasons with the franchise. The others: Patrick Kane (13 straight), Jonathan Toews (12 straight), Artemi Panarin (two straight) and Alex DeBrincat (two straight).