C Connor Bedard - Regina Pats, WHL (2023 Draft) Part 3

[nbwingsfan]

Find me one of those posts please.

Yeah for sure I’ll search back through 100s of pages from 7-8 years ago!

Hell, until this post season we had many posters say McDavid can’t play in the playoffs because he speed is neutralized

 

[RedHawkDown]

Find me one of those posts please.

It wasn’t that hard. There are multiple people saying he’s a one trick pony and won’t be able to succeed in the NHL on this one page alone:
C Connor McDavid - Erie Otters, OHL (2015 Draft) V

Why people like to pretend things didn’t happen and make these “gotcha” type of posts, I’ll never understand.

 

[wetcoast]

The winter '22 WJHC was just completed. What is coming is the 2023 WJHC. And as good as he is, I don't think he will demolish it. I'm hoping he does well, he should do well, but demolish? I don't think so. 17 year olds generally don't demolish U20 tournaments. McDavid scored 11 pts 3 goals in his second tournament. and he was one month short of his 18th. B-day. Bedard is younger. So, my expectation is somewhere around there. 11-15 pts. I wouldn't classify that as demolishing.

Fair points but he just finished tied for 8th in scoring for the 22 WJHC in a somewhat limited role, if the leash is removed for the 23 WJHC I expect him to be a serious threat for the scoring leader.

 

[wetcoast]

What he does in the WHL is more important. If he puts up 2.5+ p/gp then he's a generational prospect.

That bar is ridiculous as there have only been a couple of players to score at barley more than 2.0 PPG in the last decade in the WHL never mind guys in their draft years.
Bedard scored at a 1.61 PPG rate last year, if he flirts with close to 2.0 that might not be "generational" but it sure will be darn close.

 

[ponder]

That bar is ridiculous as there have only been a couple of players to score at barley more than 2.0 PPG in the last decade in the WHL never mind guys in their draft years.
Bedard scored at a 1.61 PPG rate last year, if he flirts with close to 2.0 that might not be "generational" but it sure will be darn close.

Also, although McDavid put up 2.55 PPG in his draft year, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have been able to do that on the current Regina Pats. McDavid had an incredible supporting cast in Erie - Alex DeBrincat, Dylan Strome, Travis Dermott, Kurtis MacDermid, Taylor Raddysh, Mason Marchment, and a bunch of other quality OHLers. They were stacked, opposing teams couldn’t focus on McDavid the way they can on Bedard, and when McDavid set teammates up, they finished much more consistently.

The Pats SUCK. Even if Bedard was as good as McDavid (and I don’t think he is, though he reasonably close), he wouldn’t be able to put up ~2.5 PPG on the current Pats. I think a “McDavid-esque draft year” for Bedard, given his supporting cast, would be ~2.3 PPG.

Although, I guess counterpoint, Sid put up 2.7 PPG in the Q in his draft year, with a fairly unimpressive supporting cast. The Q is slightly weaker, but not THAT much weaker. He was ridiculously, ridiculously good, though, an utter phenom, stepped right into the NHL and put up 102 points as a rookie.

 

[Rengorlex]

Find me one of those posts please.

It was @nbwingsfan who was skeptical of McDavid and said he's a Tavares level talent throughout his draft year. The threads are still there for everyone to read.

 

[ijuka]

Matthews is not elite in his own end.

EV Defense being 94%

But it's true this was the first season where his defense was elite.

 

[prongertheman9]

That's his main projectable asset, indeed. I however don't think he projects as someone who gets tons of prime scoring chances like Matthews. This already was something Matthews had during his pre-draft advanced stats from NLA, he had insane ratio of shots from the best scoring sectors.

And since the comparison is McDavid if it's a generational discussion, If we compare Bedard's hands, skating, passing, vision etc. to McDavid's he's not on the same level in any of them, and he also loses significantly in size. Hence the focus on shot, which is much better than McDavid's was.

Even at WJCs, I didn't exactly see Bedard getting to the high danger areas.

"Even at the WJC's". You say this like it should be easy for a triple under-ager to dominate the WJC's. People are quick to forget that Bedard just clearly outperformed Crosby and McDavid's triple underage tournament, as well as Matthews double underage tourney.

To your first point: As the below tweet points out, Bedard literally churned out xG/60 at an unprecedented rate as a 16 year old. This was also during the first few months of the season when he started slow, I can only imagine what it finished as.

I think it is completely fair to question how he will project at the next level given his size and skill set but based on his body of work to this point he would have to rank ahead of both McDavid and Matthews. The question is can he take another big jump this season like McDavid did or does he have less room to improve given his size and where he is on the development curve. I think anything above a goal per game and 2ppg this season should merit generational buzz given his league/supporting cast.

 

[Jordan Belfort]

It’s hard to live up to, but I think overall hai hype/stock decreased after this tournament as opposed to increased.

 

[teravaineSAROS]

It wasn’t that hard. There are multiple people saying he’s a one trick pony and won’t be able to succeed in the NHL on this one page alone:
C Connor McDavid - Erie Otters, OHL (2015 Draft) V

Why people like to pretend things didn’t happen and make these “gotcha” type of posts, I’ll never understand.

Plenty of people underrated McDavid. Some people also called D-1 Shane Wright generational and overhyped Lafreniere. It's definitely very common for people to overhype prospects that's why it's worth having a discussion.

Nobody knows exactly how good Bedard will be, but whoever accidentally predicts it correctly will rub it in everybody's faces like they made some genius prediction.

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

It’s hard to live up to, but I think overall hai hype/stock decreased after this tournament as opposed to increased.

But he was better than crosby and mcdavid at this age at this tourney . Tough crowd. (I understand that his game at first glance translates less well to the NHL game than sid or connors but still)

 

[Rengorlex]

Plenty of people underrated McDavid. Some people also called D-1 Shane Wright generational and overhyped Lafreniere. It's definitely very common for people to overhype prospects that's why it's worth having a discussion.

Nobody knows exactly how good Bedard will be, but whoever accidentally predicts it correctly will rub it in everybody's faces like they made some genius prediction.

Yeah, we need to collectively understand that every projection is just a probability. The better prospect has a better probability to hit higher levels --- but even the better evaluation will be wrong compared to the wrong evaluation every now and then because of the variance. Bayessian probability comes to play here.

 

[Pass the Saitl Sauce]

It wasn’t that hard. There are multiple people saying he’s a one trick pony and won’t be able to succeed in the NHL on this one page alone:
C Connor McDavid - Erie Otters, OHL (2015 Draft) V

Why people like to pretend things didn’t happen and make these “gotcha” type of posts, I’ll never understand.

You also had Nostradamus Stamkos calling 18 year old Mcdavid as a better player than 25 year old stamkos before he even stepped on NHL ice and he was right if not for the injury

 

[crosbyshow]

But he was better than crosby and mcdavid at this age at this tourney . Tough crowd. (I understand that his game at first glance translates less well to the NHL game than sid or connors but still)

Sidney Crosby is the best 16 years old in the last 40 years.

135 points in 59 games...

And....named the best junior player in Canada that year at..
16...
....think about that....Corey Perry at 19....Ryan Getzlaf at 18 were not named.the best player in Canada..


Bedars was not close to be named the best player in Canada last season.

 

[ijuka]

You also had Nostradamus Stamkos calling 18 year old Mcdavid as a better player than 25 year old stamkos before he even stepped on NHL ice and he was right if not for the injury

To be fair, 25yo Stamkos was crippled by injury. If it was 23yo pre-injury Stamkos instead, I don't think McDavid was better in his rookie year.

 

[prongertheman9]

Sidney Crosby is the best 16 years old in the last 40 years.

135 points in 59 games...

And....named the best junior player in Canada that year at..
16...
....think about that....Corey Perry at 19....Ryan Getzlaf at 18 were not named.the best player in Canada..


Bedars was not close to be named the best player in Canada last season.

Yet even Crosby wasn’t able to be a huge difference maker at the WJC’s as a 16 year old - further establishing just how impressive Bedard’s tournament was.

In regards to the bolded: Stankoven won CHL player of the year this year with almost identical stats to Bedard but with a much better supporting cast.

Stankoven: 59gp, 45g, 59a, 104p
Bedard: 62gp, 51g, 49a, 100p

To say he wasn’t close to being named the best player in Canada is just an ignorant statement.

 

[Dust]

Sidney Crosby is the best 16 years old in the last 40 years.

135 points in 59 games...

And....named the best junior player in Canada that year at..
16...
....think about that....Corey Perry at 19....Ryan Getzlaf at 18 were not named.the best player in Canada..


Bedars was not close to be named the best player in Canada last season.

I think Bedard runs away with it if he had even a decent supporting cast in Regina. Keep in mind that the 2nd best forward on the Regina Pats that he played with is a 2024 draft eligible player who was 15 most of the year.

 

[Bubbles]

I think Bedard runs away with it if he had even a decent supporting cast in Regina. Keep in mind that the 2nd best forward on the Regina Pats that he played with is a 2024 draft eligible player who was 15 most of the year.

Good news on that front. Pats just signed their import, Alexander Suzdalev, to a contract. He's the Caps 3rd rounder in 2022. Should help Bedard a lot with secondary scoring.

Bedard and Suzdalev also played in HV71 together during the pandemic, and have the same agent.

 

[crosbyshow]

Yet even Crosby wasn’t able to be a huge difference maker at the WJC’s as a 16 year old - further establishing just how impressive Bedard’s tournament was.

In regards to the bolded: Stankoven won CHL player of the year this year with almost identical stats to Bedard but with a much better supporting cast.

Stankoven: 59gp, 45g, 59a, 104p
Bedard: 62gp, 51g, 49a, 100p

To say he wasn’t close to being named the best player in Canada is just an ignorant statement.

Crosby was better than bedard at 16 and his teammates in Rimouski were really bad as well.

135 points in 59 games....and he was by far the best junior in Canada that season.

I watched 35.games of Crosby that season and ...and I watched about 15 games.of Bedard last season....and Crosby was way more dominant

Also 102 points at 18....in the Nhl....nobody did 100 points at 18 except Hawerchuck ..in the last 40 years...

The next one who will do it...is.not born yet.

Bedard is an unbelievable player but Sid was a freaking beast at 16 and 17 with Rimouski.

 

[Jared Dunn]

Good news on that front. Pats just signed their import, Alexander Suzdalev, to a contract. He's the Caps 3rd rounder in 2022. Should help Bedard a lot with secondary scoring.

Bedard and Suzdalev also played in HV71 together during the pandemic, and have the same agent.

Also just a good chance the Pats trade Bedard for a haul a la JT in his draft year. If they're not comfortably in one of the top spots in the WHL by Christmas I'd imagine they think about moving him

 

[Steve Kournianos]

McDavid 1st WJC: 16.11 years old; 7 gp 1g 3a; no gold

Bedard 1st WJC: 17.1 years old; 7 gp 4g 4a; won gold

Bedard had the better initial WJC.

 

[prongertheman9]

Crosby was better than bedard at 16 and his teammates in Rimouski were really bad as well.

135 points in 59 games....and he was by far the best junior in Canada that season.

I watched 35.games of Crosby that season and ...and I watched about 15 games.of Bedard last season....and Crosby was way more dominant

Also 102 points at 18....in the Nhl....nobody did 100 points at 18 except Hawerchuck ..in the last 40 years...

The next one who will do it...is.not born yet.

Bedard is an unbelievable player but Sid was a freaking beast at 16 and 17 with Rimouski.

You are the only one arguing about who was better at 16 in the CHL between Bedard and Crosby.

The point was that Bedard had a more productive 16 year old WJC than Sid. Do you disagree?

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

McDavid 1st WJC: 16.11 years old; 7 gp 1g 3a; no gold

Bedard 1st WJC: 17.1 years old; 7 gp 4g 4a; won gold

Bedard had the better initial WJC.

Wouldn't McDavid have been closer to 17 than 16 by that point?

 

[RayMartyniukTotems]

Connor Bedard reminds me of a young Marcel Dionne. I'm wishing for the youngster to score 80 goals in the Dub this coming season

 

[Atoyot]

McDavid 1st WJC: 16.11 years old; 7 gp 1g 3a; no gold

Bedard 1st WJC: 17.1 years old; 7 gp 4g 4a; won gold

Bedard had the better initial WJC.

No doubt, but more context is definitely needed here. McDavid wasn't used in a top line offensive role due to the "the World Juniors is a tournament for 19 year olds" and "he'll have another shot next year" mindsets. Bedard was lucky to break through them, but I have no doubt McDavid (and Crosby, who had 5 points in his first go-around) would have done just as well if given the same opportunity.