CHICAGO (AP) — With the game on the line, Connor Bedard didn't miss his chance to help the Chicago Blackhawks pull out a much-needed win. And he did it with flair.
The Blackhawks fought back for a 3-all tie with Anaheim in the second period after the Ducks scored on three of their first nine shots against Spencer Knight in the opening 10:25 of the contest.
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Chicago Blackhawks center Connor Bedard (98) scores a goal on Anaheim Ducks goalie Ville Husso (33) during the third period of an NHL hockey game Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/David Banks)
Chicago Blackhawks center Connor Bedard scores an empty net goal against the Anaheim Ducks during the third period of an NHL hockey game, Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/David Banks)
Chicago Blackhawks center Connor Bedard, right, celebrates his goal against the Anaheim Ducks with center Ryan Greene (20) during the third period of an NHL hockey game, Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/David Banks)
Chicago Blackhawks center Connor Bedard (98) celebrates the win against the Anaheim Ducks during an NHL hockey game, Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/David Banks)
“It’s not good enough in the first, but we know there’s no quitting here," Bedard said. "We believe we can come back and win any game.”
Midway through the third, Ducks veteran Alex Killorn turned the puck over to Bedard deep in the Ducks zone. Bedard moved in alone to the front of the net and goalie Ville Husso, who had replaced injured starter Petr Mrazek less than a minute earlier.
Bedard flashed his shifty stick magic as he closed in on the crease. Forehand. Backhand. Forehand tuck just inside the right post and past Husso's extended left pad to put Chicago ahead 4-3 at 9:55.
Bedard fired in a long-range empty-netter with 1:55 left to seal Chicago's 5-3 win that ended a five-game losing streak. The 20-year-old forward added two assists for his third four-point game this season and fifth career game with four or more points since joining the Blackhawks as the NHL's No. 1 draft pick in 2023.
“I was excited. I mean you don't get those chances all the time where you, know where it kind of just pops to you and you get a B-way (breakaway),” Bedard said. "It was kind of just an unlucky play on their part, and I was able to be lucky enough to get that chance and put it in.
“It's not easy for a goalie coming in in the third and we wanted to be aggressive on it.”
Bedard has 16 goals and 21 assists though 25 games of his third NHL season. His 37 points are tied with San Jose's Macklin Celebrini, the 2024 top draft pick, for second in the league. Colorado's Nathan MacKinnon leads the NHL with 44 points.
Bedard posted 10 goals and 13 assists in 14 games in November. Despite their recent slide, the Blackhawks are 11-9-5 as they try to emerge from a deep rebuild.
Bedard even started barking toward the Anaheim bench after his empty-netter on Sunday. He apparently was venting emotion after the Blackhawks scored five unanswered goal to win after a wretched start.
Coach Jeff Blashill appreciated Bedard showing a touch of fire.
“Yeah, to be honest with you,” Blashill said. "I just don't know any great players that aren't hyper-competitive. Like, he's hyper-competitive and, whatever, that show itself different ways.
“I don't know it he's always demonstrative about it, but there are times where you probably are going to be demonstrative.”
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Chicago Blackhawks center Connor Bedard (98) scores a goal on Anaheim Ducks goalie Ville Husso (33) during the third period of an NHL hockey game Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/David Banks)
Chicago Blackhawks center Connor Bedard scores an empty net goal against the Anaheim Ducks during the third period of an NHL hockey game, Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/David Banks)
Chicago Blackhawks center Connor Bedard, right, celebrates his goal against the Anaheim Ducks with center Ryan Greene (20) during the third period of an NHL hockey game, Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/David Banks)
Chicago Blackhawks center Connor Bedard (98) celebrates the win against the Anaheim Ducks during an NHL hockey game, Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/David Banks)
Spencer Deery's son was getting ready for school when someone tried to provoke police into swarming his home by reporting a fake emergency.
Linda Rogers said there were threats at her home and the golf course that her family has run for generations.
Jean Leising faced a pipe bomb scare that was emailed to local law enforcement.
The three are among roughly a dozen Republicans in the Indiana Senate who have seen their lives turned upside down while President Donald Trump pushes to redraw the state's congressional map to expand the party's power in the 2026 midterm elections.
It's a bewildering and frightening experience for lawmakers who consider themselves loyal party members and never imagined they would be doing their jobs under the same shadow of violence that has darkened American political life in recent years. Leising described it as “a very dangerous and intimidating process.”
Redistricting is normally done once a decade after a new national census. Trump wants to accelerate the process in hopes of protecting the Republicans' thin majority in the U.S. House next year. His allies in Texas, Missouri, Ohio and North Carolina have already gone along with his plans for new political lines.
Now Trump's campaign faces its greatest test yet in a stubborn pocket of Midwestern conservatism. Although Indiana Gov. Mike Braun and the House of Representatives are on board, the proposal may fall short with senators who value their civic traditions and independence over what they fear would be short-term partisan gain.
“When you have the president of the United States and your governor sending signals, you want to listen to them,” said Rogers, who has not declared her position on the redistricting push. “But it doesn’t mean you’ll compromise your values.”
On Friday, Trump posted a list of senators who “need encouragement to make the right decision," and the conservative campaign organization Turning Point Action said it would spend heavily to unseat anyone who voted “no.”
Senators are scheduled to convene Monday to consider the proposal after months of turmoil. Resistance could signal the limits of Trump's otherwise undisputed dominance of the Republican Party.
Deery considers himself lucky. The police in his hometown of West Lafayette knew the senator was a potential target for “swatting,” a dangerous type of hoax when someone reports a fake emergency to provoke an aggressive response from law enforcement.
So when Deery was targeted last month while his son and others were waiting for their daily bus ride to school, officers did not rush to the scene.
“You could have had SWAT teams driving in with guns out while there were kids in the area,” he said.
Deery was one of the first senators to publicly oppose the mid-decade redistricting, arguing it interferes with voters' right to hold lawmakers accountable through elections.
“The country would be an uglier place for it,” he said just days after Vice President JD Vance visited the state in August, the first of two trips to talk with lawmakers about approving new maps.
Republican leaders in the Indiana Senate said in mid-November that they would not hold a vote on the matter because there was not enough support for it. Trump lashed out on social media, calling the senators weak and pathetic.
“Any Republican that votes against this important redistricting, potentially having an impact on America itself, should be PRIMARIED,” he wrote.
The threats against senators began shortly after that.
Sen. Sue Glick, a Republican who was first elected in 2010 and previously served as a local prosecutor, said she has never seen “this kind of rancor” in politics in her lifetime. She opposes redistricting, saying “it has the taint of cheating.”
Not even the plan's supporters are immune to threats.
Republican Sen. Andy Zay said his vehicle-leasing business was targeted with a pipe bomb scare on the same day he learned that he would face a primary challenger who accuses Zay of being insufficiently conservative.
Zay, who has spent a decade in the Senate, believes the threat was related to his criticism of Trump's effort to pressure lawmakers. But the White House has not heeded his suggestions to build public support for redistricting through a media campaign.
“When you push us around and into a corner, we’re not going to change because you hound us and threaten us,” Zay said. “For those who have made a decision to stand up for history and tradition, the tactics of persuasion do not embolden them to change their viewpoint.”
The White House did not respond to messages seeking a reaction to Zay's comments.
Trump easily won Indiana in all his presidential campaigns, and its leaders are unquestionably conservative. For example, the state was the first to restrict abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
But Indiana's political culture never became saturated with the sensibilities of Trump's “Make America Great Again” movement. Some 21% of Republican voters backed Nikki Haley over Trump in last year's presidential primary, even though the former South Carolina governor had already suspended her campaign two months earlier.
Trump also holds a grudge against Indiana's Mike Pence, who served the state as a congressman and governor before becoming Trump's first vice president. A devout evangelical, Pence loyally accommodated Trump's indiscretions and scandals but refused to go along with Trump's attempt on Jan. 6, 2021, to overturn Democrat Joe Biden's victory.
“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what was necessary,” Trump posted online after an angry crowd of his supporters breached the U.S. Capitol.
Pence has not taken a public stance on his home state's redistricting effort. But the governor before him, Republican Mitch Daniels, recently said it was “clearly wrong.”
The proposed map, which was released Monday and approved by the state House on Friday, attempts to dilute the influence of Democratic voters in Indianapolis by splitting up the city. Parts of the capital would be grafted onto four different Republican-leaning districts, one of which would stretch all the way south to the border with Kentucky.
Rogers, the senator whose family owns the golf course, declined to discuss her feelings about the redistricting. A soft-spoken business leader from the suburbs of South Bend, she said she was “very disappointed” about the threats.
On Monday, Rogers will be front and center as a member of the Senate Elections Committee, the first one in that chamber to consider the redistricting bill.
“We need to do things in a civil manner and have polite discourse,” she said.
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Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa, and Volmert from Lansing, Mich.
Indiana Sen. Andy Zay, R-Huntington, poses at his company's office, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025, in Huntington, Ind. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)
Indiana Sen. Sue Glick, R-LaGrange, poses in her law office, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025, in LaGrange, Ind. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)
