Has Connor Bedard quietly became underrated ?

[WarriorofTime]

I’m still baffled why they didn’t try to bring in a few more skill players to lessen the load. When did came in Pittsburgh signed Gonchar, Palfy, Recchi etc always had some veterans who could still play to lean on.

Bedard has Foligno. Who’s ok, but has never been a high end offensive guy.

The "get Bedard some help" acquisitions were really Hall and Foligno last year, Bertuzzi and Teravainen this year. Add in likely hoping for more out of Kurashev this year after the season he had a year ago. Add in hoping Reichel would have taken a bigger step forward the last couple years. They extended Athanasiou at a pretty decent cap hit who was waived and in the AHL this year (before getting injured). Those moves/players really have not worked out too well, albeit none were true swing for the fences type moves.

One telling stat, Bedard leads the team in assists with 14. The next three highest assist totals on the Hawks are defensemen each with eight. No other Hawks forward has even half the number of assists that Bedard has right now. There really isn't anyone else out there to create chances. And Bedard can't exactly have a second Bedard on his line. There just isn't a Malkin or Draisaitl out there for him his second year. Not saying that means he'd be winning an Art Ross if there were, but it undoubtedly makes a difference when the team has another Forward out there to get attention and play off. Outside of Bedard they have Ryan Donato on an absolute heater and are getting subpar contributions out of the players they likely would have hoped could be more support.

I think he'll be fine long-term. Right now, he needs to continue to get stronger, continue improving on his skating speed and hopefully the forward talent around him will gradually improve because it'd be hard not to. For stretches, you can see he's been rather discouraged because of a slump that he's never experienced before. Battling through it is all just part of becoming an NHL player.