With the Masters recently finishing and the 2024-25 NHL season wrapping up, it is a great time to look at the NHL's version of the green jacket. These are the players with the worst +/- over the course of the season and a couple of Chicago Blackhawks players are among the worst.
Connor Bedard (Marc DesRosiers-Imagn Images)
Despite winning the final two games of the season, the Blackhawks finished the season with a record of 25-46-11 and had the second worst goal differential in the league at -70. It is very tough to be positive on a team like that, and not that hard to finish among the worst +/- players in the NHL. That was the case for Tyler Bertuzzi and Connor Bedard.
Bertuzzi finished second last in +/- with -39. The only player that was worse was Mason Lohrei at -43 on the Boston Bruins. Bedard was in solo third worst at -38 before going +2 in the finale. He finished the season tied with Steven Stamkos at -36 for fifth worst in the league.
Bedard even went +4 over the final four games of the season. That's a positive sign and the 19-year-old did play against the top talent of all of his opponents, so it isn't that surprising that his line was outmatched most of the time.
It's a really big +/- hole to dig out of for Bedard over his first two seasons and it might keep him in the negative +/- for most or all of his career. But if the Blackhawks start winning and he starts to really dominate as he's projected to do, that won't matter too much in the end.
