Has Connor Bedard quietly became underrated ?

[67 others]

I'm not taking anything away from Celebrini. But he's not in a ghost town like Bedard is.

Bedard seems to have most of the same teammates he did last year. Added Teravainen, Bertuzzi, Mikheyev, Craig Smith, Pat Maroon and TJ Brodie?

The Sharks also have much of the same team they did last year when they were league worst even when Hertl was there. The change is added Toffoli, Wennberg, Walman, Ceci, Goodrow, and more recently, Liljigren and a pretty good rookie coach

 

[ViD]

26 games, 19 points, only 5 goals and -12 rating (-54 career)

Certainly progression has stalled

 

[Woodrow]

26 games, 19 points, only 5 goals and -12 rating (-54 career)

Certainly progression has stalled

And 9 of his goals last year came in his first 13 games. It's almost like once goalies started studying NHL game tape of him his release stopped fooling them at a high rate. Also the Hawks are so bad that the opposing teams probably focus a lot of their pregame prep on just stopping him which isn't helping Bedard at all.

For all the talk of how great his shot was it's not actually a hard shot by NHL standards.

Here's his NHL edge stats and his top skating speed and top shot speed are both below 50th percentile. His average shot speed(not shown on this table) is 84th percentile which is pretty good. So his shot isn't the hardest but he consistently gets it off at a good clip.


All in all I do think he's getting a bit unlucky with only a shooting percentage of 7.6% but also think his shot was overrated.

Obviously he's still very young and there's lots of time to improve and he's still getting a lot of shots on goal which is good to see but his stalled progression has to be a concern for Hawk fans.

 

[Darren McCord]

I'm not taking anything away from Celebrini. But he's not in a ghost town like Bedard is.

Bedard is only in Chicago because they went with the most obvious tank job this century which is why there is nothing there. Tanking that hard creates a loser culture and that's exactly what chicago is doing.

 

[Coffey]

In their 2nd seasons, 87 had 120 pts, 97 had 100 pts.

Bedard has a way to go.

 

[coooldude]

Bedard is only in Chicago because they went with the most obvious tank job this century which is why there is nothing there. Tanking that hard creates a loser culture and that's exactly what chicago is doing.

I mean, I have every reason to hate Chicago as a Sharks fan, but they didn't even have the lowest points % in 2023. Anaheim did. And CBJ and SJS were all right there. I don't think Chicago deserves any more hate than anyone else, and the narrative at the beginning of the season was, "wow, CHI looks like they did a lot more to improve this year and should take a big step forward." While the media was firmly placing SJS as "still terrible, maybe slightly less terrible."

The difference so far is Bedard plateauing for any number of real or imagined reasons, the CHI supporting cast not fully stepping up (although some of the players looked pretty good against a terrible SJ at the time...) and on SJS's side, Celebrini arriving as a legit low-end 1C for the NHL at 18, plus a bunch of unexpected outcomes:

• Walman being a legit 1D on a bad team (not a legit 1D on any team), as a castaway
• Liljegren trade working out pretty well and helping to improve Ferraro's play, as a castaway
• Eklund taking another step, Granlund maintaining his unexpectedly positive performance from last year, Zetterlund outpacing his surprising 2023-24
• The bottom 6 actually looking respectable
• A rookie coach seemingly doing a lot of good to make the best out of the lineup

I do think Bedard is going to struggle to match a "generational" label pre-draft, but there's no reason why he can't figure out how to be a star/superstar in this league with the offensive vision, shot, and playmaking that he has. And while CHI's supporting cast looks bad so far, no reason to think it might not "regress" to a happier place next year or that they can't turn it around.

 

[LevelingSolo]

Yeah his team is awful and their talent is lacking but I would still expect more from a generational talent

 

[Peasy]

In their 2nd seasons, 87 had 120 pts, 97 had 100 pts.

Bedard has a way to go.

When will people stop comparing him to those 2?

He is not that type of talent. He is in the tier below, always has been.

 

[StrawHatEklund]

Bedard is only in Chicago because they went with the most obvious tank job this century which is why there is nothing there. Tanking that hard creates a loser culture and that's exactly what chicago is doing.

Tbf, they weren’t the worst team back in 2022-2023 but after 2023-24, they’re tanking hard again this year and looks like they will try again next year for McKenna at this rate. I’m sure Bedard will figure things out but 4 years of tanking is pretty bad. There should be signs of progress after you draft your franchise piece. You’re not expected to win but you shouldn’t be consistently horror bad.

 

[Coffey]

When will people stop comparing him to those 2?

He is not that type of talent. He is in the tier below, always has been.

Well quite a few people believe so.

 

[Peasy]

Well quite a few people believe so.

View attachment 940353

Exactly my point. When will those other 1/3rd stop trying to shoehorn him in there.

 

[ForsbergForever]

So much revisionist history on Bedard, people saying he was never expected to be a Crosby/McDavid level generational player when Bedard was seen pre-draft as a massive prize and franchise transforming player.

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6891995

Friday Four: Bedard trying to follow in McDavid's footsteps in Year 2

Connor Bedard is poised to take another massive step in 2024-25. We examine how Bedard and Connor McDavid have plenty of similarities heading into Saturday's clash.

www.sportsnet.ca

 

[MuckOG]

So much revisionist history on Bedard, people saying he was never expected to be a Crosby/McDavid level generational player when Bedard was seen pre-draft as a massive prize and franchise transforming player.

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6891995

Friday Four: Bedard trying to follow in McDavid's footsteps in Year 2

Connor Bedard is poised to take another massive step in 2024-25. We examine how Bedard and Connor McDavid have plenty of similarities heading into Saturday's clash.

www.sportsnet.ca

Agreed. We only need to look at the OP of this thread to see how many fans saw Bedard coming into the League as a "generational" star. I was shouted down for having the nerve to think that Bedard's ceiling is peak Kane or Kucherov instead of Crosby/McDavid.

 

[ViD]

Agreed. We only need to look at the OP of this thread to see how many fans saw Bedard coming into the League as a "generational" star. I was shouted down for having the nerve to think that Bedard's ceiling is peak Kane or Kucherov instead of Crosby/McDavid.

Peak Kucherov is 144 points which is better than anything from Crosby or Ovechkin

 

[ClydeLee]

Agreed. We only need to look at the OP of this thread to see how many fans saw Bedard coming into the League as a "generational" star. I was shouted down for having the nerve to think that Bedard's ceiling is peak Kane or Kucherov instead of Crosby/McDavid.

There's poll data for 2/3 of people here believed the way you did. Most scout or writers often said, yeah he's the best since Mcdavid, but doesn't have the speed/size to be on that tier.

Shouted down.. by probably 4-5 posters but that's extrapolated into something more than it really is. We all do the bad fanbase, generalizing here. But that often isn't with data right in our face

 

[TheKrebsCycle]

So much revisionist history on Bedard, people saying he was never expected to be a Crosby/McDavid level generational player when Bedard was seen pre-draft as a massive prize and franchise transforming player.

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6891995

Friday Four: Bedard trying to follow in McDavid's footsteps in Year 2

Connor Bedard is poised to take another massive step in 2024-25. We examine how Bedard and Connor McDavid have plenty of similarities heading into Saturday's clash.

www.sportsnet.ca

Yup . He was supposed to be in that tier . I’ll admit I thought he’d be much better then he has shown so far

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

There's poll data for 2/3 of people here believed the way you did. Most scout or writers often said, yeah he's the best since Mcdavid, but doesn't have the speed/size to be on that tier.

Shouted down.. by probably 4-5 posters but that's extrapolated into something more than it really is. We all do the bad fanbase, generalizing here. But that often isn't with data right in our face

There were countless people pushing the generational label, both in the media, among scouts, and obviously on HF. To act like it was only a few people who were attacking people that suggested Bedard was anything short of generational is disingenuous.

 

[Pablo El Perro]

Peak Kucherov is 144 points which is better than anything from Crosby or Ovechkin

Yet below peak Yzerman?

 

[ClydeLee]

There were countless people pushing the generational label, both in the media, among scouts, and obviously on HF. To act like it was only a few people who were attacking people that suggested Bedard was anything short of generational is disingenuous.

They were being out voted in polls. They're not people who seem to be... actually informed in terms of media people.

Anyone who talks with nuance constantly said but... or well... about his play vs the generational talk.

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

They were being out voted in polls. They're not people who seem to be... actually informed in terms of media people.

Anyone who talks with nuance constantly said but... or well... about his play vs the generational talk.

Oh I definitely agree those people who were pushing that narrative were uninformed, and generally lacked the objective analytical skills necessary to see past point totals. They also happened to be more outspoken, and drowned out the voices of the more reasonable folks.

I do recall you were one of those reasonable folks, so kudos to you.

 

[Barrie22]

Anyone that says that nobody with any knowledge was calling bedard as a generational star in he same breath as mcdavid just needs to go rewatch the draft again and in the 1st 5 minutes ut gets said that he is in the same tier as mcdavid and mathews.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Anyone that says that nobody with any knowledge was calling bedard as a generational star in he same breath as mcdavid just needs to go rewatch the draft again and in the 1st 5 minutes ut gets said that he is in the same tier as mcdavid and mathews.

Why wouldn't they? His numbers were insane. The guy put up more than 3 per game at the Junior tournament... every reason to believe he's a generational talent. But the Hawks have done him no favours. Still really, really young and on a brutal team. I still think this guy's going to be awesome.

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

Why wouldn't they? His numbers were insane. The guy put up more than 3 per game at the Junior tournament... every reason to believe he's a generational talent. But the Hawks have done him no favours. Still really, really young and on a brutal team. I still think this guy's going to be awesome.

Because he very clearly didn't have the necessary athletic ability to create space for himself at the NHL level in the way the truly generational players are able to in today's NHL. Anyone watching him these days can very plainly see that's what's holding him back.

Putting up points in junior is nice, but there's more to scouting than stat watching.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Because he very clearly didn't have the necessary athletic ability to create space for himself at the NHL level in the way the truly generational players are able to in today's NHL. Anyone watching him these days can very plainly see that's what's holding him back.

Putting up points in junior is nice, but there's more to scouting than stat watching.

It may take a bit - hopefully the Hawks can add a bit of talent for him to play with - but I tihnk he'll get there. We'll see.

Scouts pretty much universally agreed he had generational potential. His numbers were absurd. Yeah, I think he can still be that guy. But there's more to it than just talent. Development matters a lot and the Hawks aren't helping this guy.

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

It may take a bit - hopefully the Hawks can add a bit of talent for him to play with - but I tihnk he'll get there. We'll see.

I also think he's gonna be a great offensive player, but he's not gonna get to 87/97 levels. Perennial top 10 scorer in his prime, and could probably challenge for major hardware in his peak.