Chicago winning the Bedard lottery with 11.5 percent chance instead of Anaheim at 25.5 percent is completely horrible for the league and Bedard himself. He will be going to a horrible team with very little else to build around. They just went through a scandal and complete roster dismantling. Bettman must be pissed.
First having teams obviously tank and put the league's integrity into question while coinciding with a massive sports gambling partnership is not a good look. I don't care what the facts are the optics are bad right now. The respect and dignity for the game seems to be dipping and it is quite demoralizing.
Instead of a generational franchise changing talent going to a big market like California or even Columbus would have been preferable this is what we get after all the hysteria and tank jobs.
With a couple decent stars at least Bedard could play with it would be pretty promising. He could have been lining up with up and coming stars like Zegras and Terry or even with established talent like Gaudreau, Laine and Werenski.
Who is he going to be playing with in Chicago?
Is he good enough to single handedly change the complexion of a dumpster fire organization single handedly? Will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
The league just had the worst possible team win the Bedard sweepstakes. Boo to you Bettman. Boo I say.