Bowen Byram carved out a strange little corner of Blackhawks history Monday night, scoring three times in Chicago’s 4-3 preseason win over the Minnesota Wild. The goals won’t count in the NHL record book, but the feat still landed him in rare company for a franchise that has almost never seen a defenseman light it up like that.
In the 2025-26 season, only six NHL defensemen recorded a hat trick: Simon Nemec (New Jersey), Darren Raddysh (Tampa Bay), Evan Bouchard (Edmonton), Mattias Ekholm (Edmonton), Rasmus Dahlin (Buffalo), and John Carlson (Anaheim).
For Chicago, the list is even shorter. Only six Blackhawks defensemen have ever done it in either the regular season or the playoffs, which means Byram’s night was an unofficial first for the club since Dustin Byfuglien on May 5, 2010.
The last regular-season hat trick by a Blackhawks defenseman came even earlier, on Nov. 30, 2007.
That kind of production has always been a rarity in Chicago. Since the end of the Original Six era in 1967, Blackhawks fans have seen defensemen score hat tricks roughly once every 20 seasons. Gary Suter turned the trick during the 1994 Stanley Cup playoffs on Apr. 24, 1994, and just three seasons earlier, Hockey Hall of Famer Doug Wilson had one on January 26, 1991.
Before that stretch, Dick Redmond was the one piling them up for Chicago in the 1970s, with hat tricks on Apr. 4, 1973, and Feb. 12, 1977.
During the Original Six era, Doug Hohns did it twice as well, on Dec. 8, 1966, and Jan. 19, 1967.
The first Blackhawks defenseman to ever score a hat trick was also the only one to go a step further. Jack McIntyre scored four goals on Nov. 17, 1956, accounting for four of Chicago’s six goals in a 6-3 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs at Maple Leaf Gardens.
Among the Original Six teams, Chicago sits last in defenseman hat tricks. The Boston Bruins have 25 from 10 players, the Maple Leafs have 25 from 11 players, the Montreal Canadiens have 21 from 13 players, the Detroit Red Wings have 11 from eight players, and the New York Rangers have 10 from eight players.
It took nearly 30 years for the Blackhawks to get their first defenseman hat trick, and when the dam finally broke, the goals came in bursts before another long dry spell followed. Byram’s preseason outburst won’t enter the official ledger, but it does put him in the same conversation as a very small group of Chicago blue-liners.
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