Speculation: Could Bedard be offersheeted next summer?

[Mr Nogatco]

the NHL is a joke compared to every other major professional sports league. How much of that is due to a commissioner who has made pretty much every decision to the benefit of his worst owners? All of it.

There is a massive difference in the appeal of the NFL, NBA, and the NHL in states. There are myriad reasons for that. The most fundamental reason being that there is simply a massive difference in the appeal of the sports of football, basketball, and hockey to Americans.

This is underscored by the parallel disparities in TV viewership of NCAA Football, NCAA Basketball, and NCAA Hockey.

Is Gary Bettman also responsible for NCAA hockey ratings being "a joke"? Or is there a different boogeyman you blame for that?

 

[Run the Jewels]

Who cares though? Do you have stocks in the NHL or are you a player/owner?

It seems like a weird thing to focus on as a fan. League is plenty rich enough to attract all the talent in the world and to have (mostly) pro quality broadcasts.

Other leagues attract the best talent in the world generation after generation, leading to very high quality play. The NFL is quite possibly the best example, but the NBA is also absurd in terms of talent level. Those leagues have made a number of decisions designed to grow the game. The latest thing for the NFL is girls flag football. There are girls flag football leagues everywhere. The NBA is exploring expansion to Europe.

Gary's poverty league should be doing everything they can to grow the league, which already has plenty of hurdles (requires ice, limiting ability to play year round, ridiculously expensive equipment, games were broadcast on a cable channel no one could find), but he serves at the pleasure of crappy owners who want to lock in a small profit and expand an already poor quality league because they get that expansion fee without having to do anything. The vast majority of them are s**t stewards for the game.

If you care about that game - and since you're posting on a hockey board my guess is you do - you should care about the health of the game. Gary and the cheapskate owners have made it clear they do not care about growing the game, and are actually quite fine with it becoming a niche sport.

 

[Run the Jewels]

There is a massive difference in the appeal of the NFL, NBA, and the NHL in states. There are myriad reasons for that. The most fundamental reason being that there is simply a massive difference in the appeal of the sports of football, basketball, and hockey to Americans.

This is underscored by the parallel disparities in TV viewership of NCAA Football, NCAA Basketball, and NCAA Hockey.

Is Gary Bettman also responsible for NCAA hockey ratings being "a joke"? Or is there a different boogeyman you blame for that?

The NCAA tournament is the worst tournament in sports. The people who run college hockey purposely put games in arenas far from local fanbases. The games are played in sterile arenas that are often at best half empty. You couldn't make the tournament less appealing if you tried!

So no, Gary doesn't run college hockey, but both organizations have piss poor management that has shown zero interest in growing the game.

 

[dj Mahoney]

Blackhawks are loaded with prospects , like no other team in the league . Button needs something to Babble about . All B S

 

[TheFridge]

Can you really be generational before you've played even one single game in the big leagues against grown ups?

When will people learn? There's been thousands of players over the years that were amazing in the juniors, but then when it came time to go up against the very best of the best they were highly average or sometimes even completely useless. It's one thing to dominate teenagers, sometimes that doesn't translate to the big leagues.

As to the "Bedard plays on a shit team", sure there's a point there. However, his team mates outplay him regularly. You can't blame Bedards shitty play on the people that actually outplay him day in and day out.

Absolutely. It's about trajectory and projection. Your play in the NHL ultimately decides if the hype was warranted, but until you get there, your resume leading up to getting to the NHL is what builds the hype and fuels the trajectory/projection. Also, Bedard isn't just some kid that played well as as junior. His statistical profile is far, far more unique. There is no shortage of players that produce at a high rate in junior, as you mentioned. There is however, *exceptionally few* that produce at the levels Bedard produced at, at the age he produced them at, at the events he produced them in.

He was exceptional as an underage at the U18s. He was exceptional as an underage at the U20s. He was exceptional in his D-2, D-1 and D seasons in the WHL. He was as good as, or better, at every stage of his development than the guys he was compared to coming into the NHL: Crosby, McDavid, MacKinnon, etc. He earned the hype by consistently being exceptional.

Then he gets to the NHL, has two very good but not exceptional seasons playing on extremely bad and very bad teams and suddenly, people are questioning if he ever deserved the hype.

Show me the list of players that produced like Bedard did pre-NHL and you'll be showing me an incredibly exclusive list with some of the greatest players to ever play the game on it. That's how Bedard profiled coming into the league and there's nothing stopping him from still having a career worthy of being compared to the players he was compared to coming into the league.

 

[hockeyguy0022]

Flames should go at Bedard and Knies with the offer sheets. Got the cash and picks.

 

[slappipappi]

Flames should go at Bedard and Knies with the offer sheets. Got the cash and picks.

And why would either player decide Calagry is where they want to play?

 

[The Don Hughes]

Flames should go at Bedard and Knies with the offer sheets. Got the cash and picks.

It would take an absurd amount offered for the Leafs not to match a Knies OS.

 

[Castle8130]

The Hawks need to add something serious to this roster. We have only 1 blue chip prospect in Levshunov and a ton of these young supporting cast types in Oliver Moore, Nick Lardis, Roman Kantserov, etc..

On top of that, the roster is absolute garbage. Our GM, Kyle Davidson, has not added a true top 6/top 4 D caliber player to our roster in the entirety of the time he has been GM (3 years now). In fact, the only players we had that fit those descriptions (Hagel, Debrincat, Strome, Mccabe) he traded away for more picks.

I've been pretty skeptical on the drafting side of things too. He's had 21 top 3 round picks under this new staff (an insane amount of draft capital) and I'm underwhelmed with how those picks were utilized. Kevin Korchinski 7th oa looks pretty bad right now, Oliver Moore who they publicly stated was in their top 10 in a loaded draft looks like a 3rd/4 th liner, and picking Levshunov over Demidov looks like a big kick in the cajones

 

[HabsQC]

Id do 1 year x $11,452,294 and try to make a deal with Bedard afterwards. I wouldn't go at 4 1st round picks since the Habs are still barely a playoffs team. Maybe a team like Dallas or Colorado could offer something stupid like 1 year @ 17 millions just to get him out of there

Hawks would likely match though.

 

[NeptunesTrident]

Chicago has something like $19M currently committed for the 2026-27 year when Bedard’s contract extension would take effect. There is no offer they won’t match. They’ll know how much he wants and budget around it.

 

[Crow]

The Hawks need to add something serious to this roster. We have only 1 blue chip prospect in Levshunov and a ton of these young supporting cast types in Oliver Moore, Nick Lardis, Roman Kantserov, etc..

On top of that, the roster is absolute garbage. Our GM, Kyle Davidson, has not added a true top 6/top 4 D caliber player to our roster in the entirety of the time he has been GM (3 years now). In fact, the only players we had that fit those descriptions (Hagel, Debrincat, Strome, Mccabe) he traded away for more picks.

I've been pretty skeptical on the drafting side of things too. He's had 21 top 3 round picks under this new staff (an insane amount of draft capital) and I'm underwhelmed with how those picks were utilized. Kevin Korchinski 7th oa looks pretty bad right now, Oliver Moore who they publicly stated was in their top 10 in a loaded draft looks like a 3rd/4 th liner, and picking Levshunov over Demidov looks like a big kick in the cajones

Tuevo is a top 6 player, they just need more of them.

Korchinski looks like he has made some strides to me. We’ll see how these last games go. Levshunov looks special to me. Have no regrets there at all.

I think you are being a bit too skeptical but that’s your choice.

 

[PainForShane]

Absolutely. It's about trajectory and projection. Your play in the NHL ultimately decides if the hype was warranted, but until you get there, your resume leading up to getting to the NHL is what builds the hype and fuels the trajectory/projection. Also, Bedard isn't just some kid that played well as as junior. His statistical profile is far, far more unique. There is no shortage of players that produce at a high rate in junior, as you mentioned. There is however, *exceptionally few* that produce at the levels Bedard produced at, at the age he produced them at, at the events he produced them in.

He was exceptional as an underage at the U18s. He was exceptional as an underage at the U20s. He was exceptional in his D-2, D-1 and D seasons in the WHL. He was as good as, or better, at every stage of his development than the guys he was compared to coming into the NHL: Crosby, McDavid, MacKinnon, etc. He earned the hype by consistently being exceptional.

Then he gets to the NHL, has two very good but not exceptional seasons playing on extremely bad and very bad teams and suddenly, people are questioning if he ever deserved the hype.

Show me the list of players that produced like Bedard did pre-NHL and you'll be showing me an incredibly exclusive list with some of the greatest players to ever play the game on it. That's how Bedard profiled coming into the league and there's nothing stopping him from still having a career worthy of being compared to the players he was compared to coming into the league.

Yep, well said. I think some ppl aren't giving him enough leeway for still being only 19 -- he's still the 3rd youngest player in the whole league even while finishing up his 2nd season. And it makes sense for him to playing in a league against men, he's already proved everything possible in junior. Most players aren't even in the league yet, and here he is finishing up his 2nd NHL season.

I guess you could maybe make the argument that a different league (like Swiss league or something) would be better for his development but he won the Calder and he'll finish with 60 points this year even as much as some people are shitting on him. Still impressive in the best league in the world. Just as importantly Bedard (at 19 years old!) is a 2C on most teams, and every single team would love to have him in his current state and current cap hit, which doesn't even factor in his potential which most believe is extremely high. So I don't think that's a well-thought out argument.

To me, 2 main things he needs are
1) Size / strength -- from what I've seen he's not able to get established in his lane and / or get to (and stay) in high scoring areas
2) Someone who can get him the puck. He's a goal scorer, most if not all top tier goal scorers had a top tier passer setting him up (AM34 w Matthews, Ovi with Backstrom / Kuzy, Oates and Hull etc etc). Right now Bedard has... Tyler Bertuzzi? (just looked this up, at 5v5 Tyler Bertuzzi is tied w Vlasic for most of his total assists with 7).

***

I'm not worried about size / strength, a lot of young players come in the league weak and get stronger over a few offseasons. Weirdly enough, I think his biggest uncertainty is whether Chicago gets at least league average players within the next few years. Given their draft picks you have to assume they will, but teams like Buffalo do exist. Hopefully the Hawks can draft a decent group of forwards and then we'll see what Bedard can do once those fwds develop

 

[Fight4yourRight]

Wouldn’t happen to a more deserving team if he were to bail. We can pray and hope.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

Gotta keep the Toronto fans dreaming I guess, you know the whole premise of talk like this is "Toronto's gonna get him!"

 

[BHawk21]

They'll match anything so there's no point. GMs do offer sheets if they think they will succeed

bingo

 

[SI90]

Why would he leave so soon? They’re a young rebuilding franchise. This is the growing pains. They’d match any offer sheet anyway.