"Nobody is afraid of Bedard"....Bruce Boudreau

[Chelios]

Needs to get benched and stop playing pond hockey on left
2-way god, championship worthy, play driving Toews clone on the right

If you listen closely you can actually hear Whiskey furiously tapping away trying to find obscure statistics to refute this.

 

[RedHawkDown]

He just plays a game that is seen as "soft". He's like Kane. Whereas Celebrini plays "the right way" so he's seen as responsible, when the actual on-ice results are identical in both cases. Once Chicago starts winning the narrative will flip to "game breaking offensive talent".

 

[Video Nasty]

At no point has McDavid looked like the 300th best player in the NHL this season, no need to be so hyperbolic.

Hopefully meant that McDavid playing average to his own highest standards still makes him a top 5 player in the game.

 

[Washed Up 29YearOld]

Was watching a Hawks game on espn+ to check out Bedard a couple weeks ago.
And my god it was embarrassing how much the Hawks broadcast was fawning over Bedard like he's a god or something or the second coming of Gretzky.

The hype was unreal, I can see how Hawks fans believe Bedard is more than he is, I don't blame them.

Bedard looked invisible half the game and the other half he was generating scoring chances that ultimately led to nothing.

give him good teammates, change bad habits, he's a 85-100 pt player in his prime.
(with higher scoring era not as impressive as some years)

But he's not the second coming of Crosby as Hawks media profess and insist.

 

[Chelios]

But he's not the second coming of Crosby as Hawks media profess and insist.

Show me where Chicago media has said this.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Was watching a Hawks game on espn+ to check out Bedard a couple weeks ago.
And my god it was embarrassing how much the Hawks broadcast was fawning over Bedard like he's a god or something or the second coming of Gretzky.

Do you have a clip in particular that you are referring to so the audience can judge for themselves the merit of the statement?

 

[Macheteops]

Crosby fans were talking down to young McDavid to discredit him back in the day too. And it was annoying and cringe back then just like it is now with McDavid fans doing the same thing to Bedard.

Crosby fans had a legit reason to be worried. Even though immature as it might be. McDavid won the Art Ross his second season and continued to dominate

I don't think many McDavid fans are that worried about Bedard

I personally thought he'd have a bigger impact and honestly hoped he would. I just don't see him as a McDavid/Crosby type player but I think with some future help he'll have some big seasons. He looked dangerous vs the Oil the other night

 

[Il Stugotz]

I mean they should be a little afraid of letting him tee off like this:

 

[FastEddie]

If I'm not mistaken there were probably three years after MacKinnon's rookie season where people thought he'd just be a PPG guy at best because he lacked hockey IQ. Bad years for Colorado. There was a Mackinnonassaince in year 5 when he scored 97 up from 53 the previous year. Mac has size and especially speed over Bedard, though.

Still, why can't Bedard be a Kane type player? Maybe a winger role and a Toews at center would better suit him.

 

[Star Platinum]

What is Celebrini doing statistically this year that Bedard didn't do last year?

Similar PPG
Slightly better looking plus/minus
Better GPG
Worse APG
Better linemates
Equally inept team

You'd have to watch him play to understand. It's not the kind of thing that's going to show on boxscore stats.

 

[WarriorofTime]

As of the time of this post, Bedard has the 2nd best Powerplay Points per 60 in the NHL for the 2024-25 season with any sort of reasonable filter (over 16 minutes of total powerplay time on the season is the min that gets you there).

Hawks powerplay sits 8th in the league in terms of percentage after tonight, between Edmonton and Florida (the two most recent SCF). Bedard has points on 23/31 Blackhawk powerplay goals on the season (71.875 %).

If Hawks weren't bottom 5 in terms of powerplay opportunities, I reckon Bedard's point totals would be better than they are.

 

[895]

This is embarrassing for Chicago.

He made some good points, he didn’t attack him personally. Just because you were a bad player doesn’t mean you are wrong about everything. Scotty bowman wasn’t a great player either.

 

[DrunkTurtle]

This is embarrassing for Chicago.

He made some good points, he didn’t attack him personally. Just because you were a bad player doesn’t mean you are wrong about everything. Scotty bowman wasn’t a great player either.

Kinda lame from the Hawks, just constructive criticism from Biz. If anything the coaches should be bringing up the same exact points to Bedard regularly.

 

[GIADF]

NHL Fans: the league and players have no personality!!!


(NHL team makes a lighthearted and harmless joke, one that Biz himself would probably chuckle at)


NHL Fans: I can't believe they said that how inappropriate!!!

 

[Crosby2010]

I think we need to tap the brakes on this. Bedard is hardly the first player to be criticized as a teenager in the NHL. But he is just that, a teenager. He can buy a beer in Canada...........barely. You know you must have had expectations on you when you have 109 points in 122 career games and people are disappointed. Two seasons, both just shy of a point per game on the worst team (San Jose too) in the NHL. He is relying on the power play more, and he may be dealing with a bit of a sophomore slump but that's where it ends I think. He'll get stronger, we all saw how he plays the game. They criticized Mario early in his career too. Mario of course did a lot better offensively, but Bedard was never going to be Mario.

If you compare Bedard's first two seasons to MacKinnon's first two then the winner is Bedard. Or how about the fact it took MacKinnon until his 5th season before he exploded. His first 4 seasons were not elite. His 4th season he played all 82 games and had 53 points. I will agree that when you watched him even at that time you figured it was only a matter of time before he explodes, I can remember him on the World Championship team and he certainly showed that. But it wasn't until Season 5 that he was living up to his potential.

The Hawks are horrible. Look at that lineup. And he's still rattling off at close to a point per game rate. The draft will be key. Because San Jose if they get the first pick will almost certainly want Schaefer on the back end. It makes sense. They have Celebrini and Smith up front, so you want that elite defender. That leaves, Hagens, Martone or Misa for the Hawks. That's what you need, another elite forward up there with him. Let's also remember that as much as I love Celebrini, we all loved Bedard last year too.

 

[JPT]

Of course Bruce would think that coaches aren’t “worried about Bedard” coming into a game

This is the same guy who refused to line match in the WCF 2015 and watched Toews and Hossa eat Getzlaf lunch money on home ice late in that series because his refusing to acknowledge the other teams best players should be game planned around

Ate their lunch money? That's some interesting bullying.

 

[JPT]

Tree trunks and a double chin, legendary.

View attachment 973160

View attachment 973153

View attachment 973151

 

[HawksDub89]

Mackinnon and Hughes were far from special early on. Bedard is on pace for 75 points on a tire fire of a team. He’s physically immature and doesn’t have help. It’s impressive when most people can pick apart holes in his game and acknowledge this team is brutal and that he’s also almost a PPG player.

Give the kid 2-3 years here. He can’t even drink in the city he resides in.

The revisionist history is hilarious in this thread.

I literally don’t remember Mac AT ALL his first few years in the NHL. He was basically a 50ish point player on a historically awful Avalanche team. A complete non factor.

The best part about these threads is being able to revisit them when Bedard inevitably ends up a top 5 player in the league down the road.

People crapped on Hughes in his first couple seasons too.

 

[PamBallam]

It's been 20 years, but people still seem to expect every first overall to be Sid or Ovi and just dominate from day 1.

 

[dirtydanglez]

bedard came in at the beginning of the hawks rebuild. guys like crosby, mackinnon, and mcdavid got to walk in to rebuilds that were underway. bedard is doing fine and is going to be a top player in the league.

 

[Breakfast of Champs]

Some people are really overlooking how bad his situation is in Chicago right now. Offensively , it's brutal for his totals . They don't have anyone to pair him with who is currently even a 1st line calibre player.

He's not going to be McDavid or Crosby - but he is still gonna be a top 5 or even top 3 offensive player in the league with potential to win major hardware in his prime.

Nobody is scared of him because the team is awful and nobody is scared of losing to him yet. Once he gets a better cast around him he will definitely scare you with his offensive abilities. He won't ever be physically imposing but neither is McDavid to be fair, and everyone is terrified of him. Again, I don't expect a McDavid level prime but I do expect him to be among the game's elite

 

[rynryn]

i'm reluctant to say anything positive about the hawks but watching him I can see the top end talent. was never on-board the "generational" talk but you don't have to be generational to be a player the other team is "afraid" of. He's not prime patty kane (yet) where that little bastard could win games by himself when the rest of the team shat the bed but he'll get there.

 

[FDBluth]

The funny thing about this media narrative that's emerged all of a sudden is that Bedard has points in 18 of his last 21 games and is above a point per game over that time. He's doing this without any other actual first line players on his team and a team with very little puck possession. And he's still the 3rd youngest player in the league. TSN literally had an article in the last few days that said "Struggling Bedard" in the title, lol.

Yes he makes some naive plays for sure but his team is also so bad that bad plays that might be covered up on other teams are often immediately in the back of the net on his team.

 

[Geoist]

You need more than an elite shot to thrive at this level,

Oh yes, if only Bedard had more than an elite shot, lmao. This board is absolutely cooked.

 

[Geoist]

Hockey media tries to spark stupid controversy and you meatheads eat that shit up. Pathetic.

He’s 19. I don’t get the negativity.

I get it. Sports media knows their viewer base are lemmings that will lap it up when they tear down a player they've built up.