Chicago Blackhawks Suffer Tough Loss As Rookie Anton Frondell Achieves Rare NHL Feat

Blackhawks rookie Frondell focuses during an NHL contest© Getty via AFP

The Chicago Blackhawks dropped a painful contest to the Boston Bruins on Saturday, blowing a lead they had no business losing. But buried inside that frustrating result was something worth noting. Swedish teenager Anton Frondell scored twice, marking his second multi-goal game as a professional. That put him in company most NHL rookies never reach. He became just the seventh Sweden-born teenager in league history to record multiple multi-goal games in a career, joining names that include Mats Sundin, Elias Pettersson, Gabriel Landeskog, and Lucas Raymond.

Frondell Joins a List That Reads Like a Hall of Fame Shortlist

Frondell became the seventh Sweden-born teenager in NHL history with multiple multi-goal games in his career, joining Lucas Raymond, Elias Pettersson, Leo Carlsson, Elias Lindholm, Gabriel Landeskog, and Mats Sundin. Sundin is a Hall of Famer. Pettersson, Raymond, and Carlsson are all building toward elite status. That is the list Frondell has now entered, less than 30 career games into his NHL life.

Nobody is handing him a banner yet. His output has been inconsistent. His two goals against the Bruins were his first points of any kind in seven games, and that gap in production is something he'll need to clean up. But context matters when judging a teenager adjusting to the speed and physicality of the best hockey league in the world, playing for a team still clearly in rebuild mode.

The more telling number is the overall arc. With eight points and three goals in 14 games this season, and nine points and three goals in 12 games last year, Frondell sits at 17 points and six goals across 26 career games, putting him comfortably over the half-point-per-game mark. For a kid who had only 65 shots in those same 26 games, the goals-to-opportunities ratio hints at how much more there is once he starts getting to his spots more regularly.

Chicago's Rebuild Has a Few Pieces Starting to Show

Frondell's breakout didn't happen in a vacuum. Roman Kantserov has seven points and five goals in 14 games this season, and like Frondell, he is in his first full year with the organisation. Add Wyatt Kaiser, Frank Nazer, Sam Rinzel, Artyom Levshunov, and Alex Vlasic to the mix, and Chicago's pipeline looks less like a project and more like a plan actually coming together.

The Blackhawks' goal was always to build around Connor Bedard. What they need around him are guys who can do damage on their own, not just feed him the puck. Frondell currently sits third on the team in points, which says something about how quickly he has pushed into relevance. He's not there yet. But at 19, appearing on a list beside Mats Sundin after just 26 professional games is nothing.

The loss to Boston will fade. Frondell's trajectory likely won't.