Has Connor Bedard quietly became underrated ?

[authentic]

I had Bedard pegged as a guy with a 60 goal 120 point ceiling, but I don't think him being ahead of Mackinnon at this age means a ton. They are completely different players.

Bigger, more powerful guys like Mackinnon often take longer to reach their full maturity - this is why citing Howe as an example of a generational player that took a while to hit his stride doesn't really hold much water.

Consider that Mackinnon was only 6'0 180 before the draft, and has since added 20 lbs. Meanwhile, Bedard already weighed 185 lbs, despite being only 5'9.75 at the combine. He is much closer to his physical maturity than Mackinnon was at the same age.

Bedard should continue to get stronger and faster, but he's probably closer to a finished product than Mackinnon. More importantly, his offensive game doesn't rely as heavily on those athletic attributes as a PWF like Mackinnon, so we wouldn't expect to see a dramatic improvement in his offensive performance as a result.

Also how is he light years ahead of MacKinnon anyway? Rookie MacKinnon had 10 points in his first playoff series, he was scoring pretty similar to Bedard in the regular relative to the league.

 

[Brookbank]

From Rob Talks Hockey

 

[Adrianopolous]

Watched the whole game today.

He’s not a guy.

Should have spent a year in the minors

 

[Video Nasty]

I’ll admit it. I’m a little disappointed in him so far. 12 points in 14 games in this era in his sophomore season isn’t good enough.

That’s 25 goals and 73 points in his first 82 NHL games. Not bad certainly. But he’s an easy 30 points off what I expected through that number of games.

Let’s also not forget he had 9 goals in his first 13 games. Just 16 in 69 since is fairly disappointing.

 

[AlwaysSunnyInDetroit]

no

 

[authentic]

I’ll admit it. I’m a little disappointed in him so far. 12 points in 14 games in this era in his sophomore season isn’t good enough.

That’s 25 goals and 73 points in his first 82 NHL games. Not bad certainly. But he’s an easy 30 points off what I expected through that number of games.

Let’s also not forget he had 9 goals in his first 13 games. Just 16 in 69 since is fairly disappointing.

Could be a confidence issue at this point. Still have to believe he figures it out in the next few seasons and starts lighting it up, but my prediction about him becoming an elite scorer by the end of this season may have been slightly off.

 

[Video Nasty]

Could be a confidence issue at this point. Still have to believe he figures it out in the next few seasons and starts lighting it up, but my prediction about him becoming an elite scorer by the end of this season may have been slightly off.

Hope the tide turns. Would love nothing more than to look back on these comments and chuckle after he rampages to 100 points this season. Want to see some more consistent magic like his brief stretches where he’s gone off.

 

[Brookbank]

Watched the whole game today.

He’s not a guy.

Comedy.

Imagine watching a player for a whole game , and then deciding what he's going to be lifetime. Its almost like smaller players have a slight disadvantage when they enter the NHL.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Its almost like smaller players have a slight disadvantage when they enter the NHL.

I think some of us tried to say this but the hype was still out of control, with some predicting 50+ goals in his rookie year. He's played 82 now and scored 25.

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

I think some of us tried to say this but the hype was still out of control, with some predicting 50+ goals in his rookie year. He's played 82 now and scored 25.

It's weird agreeing with you.

 

[Hennessy]

Neither here nor there, but I've benched him tonight in fantasy for Thompson and Barkov. And would've started Duchene over him, too.
That's not an indictment on the player. Chicago sucks. It's hard for even a legit superstar to show up nightly on such a team. He'll be OK.

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

His shooting percentage is unsustainably low at 6.1% this season, but it's a small sample so it should bounce a bit. More concerning would be the fact that he is shooting 7.6% over his last 69 games, with only 16 goals, which puts him t-4th on the Hawks in goals in that span. And among guys with >25gp, he's 4th in goals per game, 6th in 5v5 g/60, and 8th total g/60 over that span, behind guys like Katchouk, Blackwell, Donato, Foligno, Kurashev, Dickinson, and Tyler Johnson.

With how weak the Hawks offensive roster has been, and with his extremely generous offensive deployments, Bedard should be lapping his teammates in goal scoring metrics.

That's a larger sample where it starts getting hard to believe he's capable of shooting >15% like other elite goal scorers.

You get the sense that goalies are ready for him. A lot of his shots are coming from the perimeter, and are preceded by him holding the puck for at least 2-3 seconds, so the goalies are set. And the reality is that if NHL goaltenders have an opportunity to get set and have a clean look at a shot from outside the dots, they aren't going to get beat often, no matter how good your shot is.

Bedard has yet to figure out how to consistently get chances around the net, which is made harder by him doing so much primary puck carrying. But he's a smart kid - I think he'll learn how to get to those high danger areas. I think it would help if he was moved to the wing and given an excellent puck transporting center to play with - Reichel, Nazar, and Moore could all fill that role down the road (Reichel is showing signs he could be ready to play that role now).

Good news is that even if he never becomes the elite goal scorer many of us expected, he will still be a very dangerous offensive player because of his outstanding playmaking ability.

 

[GarlicbreadTB]

 

[McFlash97]

He is a great talent, however he was never going to be in the McDavid realm like Hawks fans were salivating over. McDavid is at Gretzky Lemieux level. That level can't be touched. However he is pretty dam close to generational as you can get, so let's see how much he improves by the end of the season.

 

[Cubs2024wildcard]

Lots of hof'ers take a few years to get going. Jagr, Thornton, Kucherov, MacKinnon, Matthews, and many more all took multiple seasons before they became 100+ point players. Acting like comparing Bedard to them is an insult is what's bizarre.

Umm.....

Jagr was a monster the first game he stepped on NHL ice, then in his second year hung 5 blackhawks jocks in the rafters on one play in the playoffs and pretty much humiliated them.

AM scored 40 his rookie year.

Comparing Bedard to them is an insult.

To them.

 

[Cubs2024wildcard]

But was Lemieux good?

Well, to be honest, a washed up Mario is better then anything Bedard has on the Hawks.

I mean, if you put Mario in skates right now he's better then anything Bedard has on the Hawks.....

Gordie Howe exists. So do Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Cristiano Ronaldo (and many others).

Thats really not Jordan's fault tho.

Just sayin

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

Now that he has hit the 82 game point, I did some analysis to see how he stacked up to the first 82 games of other superstar 18/19 year old rookies picked at the top of the draft:

Gretzky, Crosby, McDavid, and Lemieux really stand out as a cut above the rest. Those are the true generational players in the last 45 years IMO.

Still, Bedard has some great company in the bottom half of that list, though its noteworthy that Bedard is the shortest guy on the list. If Bedard has a career like Kane, Kovalchuk, Matthews, or Mackinnon, that's an awesome outcome. The latter 3 might be a bit unrealistic just because they are all so much bigger/more athletic than Bedard, but he's on track with them as of now.

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

He is a great talent, however he was never going to be in the McDavid realm like Hawks fans were salivating over. McDavid is at Gretzky Lemieux level. That level can't be touched. However he is pretty dam close to generational as you can get, so let's see how much he improves by the end of the season.

Gretzky n lemieux losing multiple healthy art ross n starting a season with 10 points in 11 gp?

 

[ClydeLee]

He is a great talent, however he was never going to be in the McDavid realm like Hawks fans were salivating over.

Who? I don't get this view at all and never saw extra hype of hawks fans. I see more from the general community than Hawks fans

 

[Brookbank]

He is a great talent, however he was never going to be in the McDavid realm like Hawks fans were salivating over. McDavid is at Gretzky Lemieux level. That level can't be touched. However he is pretty dam close to generational as you can get, so let's see how much he improves by the end of the season.

Hawks fans have just been along for the ride. It wasn't really them. It was the hockey establishment that hyped Bedard. For obvious reasons.

Bedard was on the front cover of The Hockey News in 2018 when he was 13 years old. Ken Campbell wrote the article on him.Again , for obvious reasons.

He hasn't started off dominating but I don't see how that takes away from what he will ultimately be. If he does what he did at every level of hockey before (with a disadvantage of being small) then this period will long be forgotten.

Quinn Hughs started off small. He was -10 and -25 and between 40-50 points in his first 2 years. And now he's a Norris winner and the fastest L hand D in league history to hit 300 assists.

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

He hasn't started off dominating but I don't see how that takes away from what he will ultimately be. If he does what he did at every level of hockey before (with a disadvantage of being small) then this period will long be forgotten.

You don't see how his NHL play is more relevant than his WHL production?

Being small in the WHL isn't really that much of a hinderance like it is in the NHL. Just ask Colton Yellow Horn. 35 goals 86 points in 70 games in his draft year in the WHL and couldn't even stick in the AHL.

Quinn Hughs started off small. He was -10 and -25 and between 40-50 points in his first 2 years. And now he's a Norris winner and the fastest L hand D in league history to hit 300 assists.

Hughes had 69 points in 85 games (including playoffs) as a rookie defenseman - he was instantly an elite offensive defenseman. He was nearly as productive as Bedard is in a lower scoring league from the back end.

 

[GIADF]

with his extremely generous offensive deployments,

Richardson is absolutely clueless with deployments and it is certainly not a benefit for Bedard. Not to mention Seth Jones being on PP1 is a crime against Bedard.


Not to mention he has basically never seen any time to pad his stats with defending an empty net.

 

[Romang67]

From Rob Talks Hockey

That's an infuriating graph, which has nothing to do with the Blackhawks' developing of Bedard.

McDavid didn't score somewhere in between 75 and 100 points as a rookie. Why does the x-axis start at 200? Where are the grid lines, or anything at all indicating distance between points? What the hell is going on?

 

[belfour30]

That's an infuriating graph, which has nothing to do with the Blackhawks' developing of Bedard.

McDavid didn't score somewhere in between 75 and 100 points as a rookie. Why does the x-axis start at 200? Where are the grid lines, or anything at all indicating distance between points? What the hell is going on?

Y axis is pts/82
X axis is total pts of the next 5 scorers on the team.

 

[The Panther]

I wouldn't worry about Bedard. His team blows, and he is still a teen and eligible for junior level hockey.

Come back in five years and we can start to evaluate...