Connor Bedard Vs. Macklin Celebrini

[Luigi Lemieux]

Still need to see more of Celebrini but he's been so impressive so far. Expect he'll be the better two way player, so the question is how much better will Bedard be offensively? If at all...

 

[Luigi Lemieux]

The timing for these comparisons are a little unfair in that Bedard is slumping and Celebrini is playing out of his mind––recency bias will always creep into these discussions in unavoidable ways.

But I do think these conversations and comparisons should be less of a knock on Bedard (who is a very special talent) and more of a knock on the lack of hype around Celebrini. It should have been obvious what kind of an exceptional prospect Celebrini was, yet a good number of people around here and in the media seemed to think he was more of a middle-of-the-road first overall.

I think there was some hype fatigue for Celebrini since he was right after Bedard, and Bedard while solid didn't exactly light the world on fire. So hype was more muted for Celebrini if even Bedard struggled (relative to hype).

 

[The Burdened]

Ovechkin without Backstrom isn't that great.

OV scored 52 goals and 106 points as a rookie with no Backstrom.
Ovechkin made Backstrom

 

[GrumpyKoala]

He just won rookie of the year with one of the best D+1 scoring seasons in recent memory. His struggles right now aren't 3 points in 15 games. He's a proven top 6 scorer in the NHL and is only 19 years old. Hard to believe he won't be scoring 100+ points and 40+ goals during his prime, if not sooner.

He trending for another 60 pts season just like last year, so purely from an analytic perspective, he pretty stable. I don't think he currently slumping hard, that just a reflexion of what he is as a player with some room to grow

The gap between 60pts and 100 is huge. 80 players did 60+ last year and only 9 made it to 100.
Now I am not debating if he can, maybe, but the current indicators are not also like its a given.

Same things for goals. Not everyone with talent get a 40 goal season, Only 15 players did that last year.

I don't see a trend where people generally underrate him, if anything I see a lot of people hyping the unrealized potential he as, extrapolating on how good at a point in the future he would be.

 

[Xirik]

OV scored 52 goals and 106 points as a rookie with no Backstrom.
Ovechkin made Backstrom

Are you saying that Backstrom didn't help Ovechkin at all.


people these days...