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

[TheOrganist]

I also heard Boudreau utter following line on NHL Network Radio on Friday: “Washington also has prospect Justin Leonard playing at BC or BU or something like that”…

 

[Erika]

Nobody is afraid of Bedard because he plays with terrible line mates who are barely NHL players. He's been in the league for 2 years now and the best winger Davidson can get him is Taylor Hall?

Stop with the excuses.
Teuvo Teravainen is a legit NHL top 6 talent. Donato and Bertuzzi can also play in a top 9.
If Berard was that good, he would've been at least a 1.1 ppg play driver by now, but no...
He's just a passenger, undersized winger disguised as a center.

I have been saying it for the past 24 months, Bedard is no generational talent, it's pretty obvious by now.

 

[pekka55]

The guy is 19 and only in his 2nd season. He's also playing on a very shitty team. That said however, he's not some generational talent. Every f***ing year people talk about some new prospect being generational. Do people not realize what generational means?

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

The blackhawks have actually been a fair amount better this year vs his rookie season, which makes some of Bedard's struggles that much more confusing:

2.17 --> 2.72 GF/GP
16.6% --> 26.2% PP%
0.317 --> 0.358 pts%
42.3% --> 43.1% 5v5 xG%

They're only 1 regulation win shy of their total from last year, with 22 games left.

But despite the team's improvements, Bedard's numbers are down pretty much across the board.

74 --> 67 point pace
0.73 --> 0.60 primary p/gp
3.03 --> 2.32 shots per game

At 5v5:
0.90 --> 0.63 ixG/60
0.92 --> 0.55 g/60
1.96 --> 1.53 p/60
43.3% --> 41.7% xG%
+2.2 --> -2.1 rel xG%
91.9% --> 67.6% IPP%

The shooting numbers are probably the most alarming, but that last data point is maybe the most surprising. Last year he was involved in nearly 92% of 5v5 goals while he was on the ice. If he wasn't directly involved in the play, the hawks pretty much weren't scoring.

But not this year. His IPP% has plummeted to 67%. His on ice GF/60 is actually slightly higher than last year (even if his on ice xGF/60 has dropped). So they're scoring more goals, but Bedard's just not driving the boat like he was last year. So why is that?

The linemates excuse held a lot of water last year. It seemed like he was likely already a PPG+ player if he just had a bit more help.

Davidson went out and got him a bit more help. Teravainen is a legit top 6 forward, and Bertuzzi is a legit top 9 forward. And they added back a healthy Hall. Certainly not elite players, but it's more help than he had as a rookie, so most expected him to improve on his rookie season (myself included).

So why has the opposite happened?

If we take a look at Teravainen's season, we see that after struggling in the his first 30 games, he has been really good in his last 30.

13 points in first 30 games
33 points his last 30 games

What's notable is that Bedard was his most common linemate in the first half, but in the second half he's played with Dickinson, Foligno, Mikheyev, and Nazar. It's downright mind boggling that a player could have such better results with those guys than Connor Bedard.

Meanwhile, Bedard's 30 game scoring splits are pretty similar, despite playing primarily with TT, Hall, and Foligno in the first half, and then mostly Donato, Bertuzzi and Nazar in the second half.

24 points in first 30 games
25 points in last 30 games

These numbers, coupled with his offensive regression this year, makes me wonder if maybe the linemate factor isn't holding Bedard back as much as previously thought? Does he just need to be the guy on his line? Or maybe he just needs a true star running mate?

I think some of this fall off is a result of him trying to play better defensively. Last year, a lot of his offense was generated off the rush, where he'd cheat up ice to get free. This year, I've noticed that he's made a much more consistent effort to come back deeper in the d zone to defend down low, which obviously makes it harder to get odd man rushes. That helps to maybe explain why he's not involved in as much of his team's offense.

Unfortunately, while he's giving more effort down low, he's just not particularly good at defending. This tells me that he's best suited for wing, It's surprising that they haven't committed to that change yet.

Give him a solid play driving center and he's easily a 90-100 point guy IMO.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

The blackhawks have actually been a fair amount better this year vs his rookie season, which makes some of Bedard's struggles that much more confusing:

2.17 --> 2.72 GF/GP
16.6% --> 26.2% PP%
0.317 --> 0.358 pts%
42.3% --> 43.1% 5v5 xG%

They're only 1 regulation win shy of their total from last year, with 22 games left.

But despite the team's improvements, Bedard's numbers are down pretty much across the board.

74 --> 67 point pace
0.73 --> 0.60 primary p/gp
3.03 --> 2.32 shots per game

At 5v5:
0.90 --> 0.63 ixG/60
0.92 --> 0.55 g/60
1.96 --> 1.53 p/60
43.3% --> 41.7% xG%
+2.2 --> -2.1 rel xG%
91.9% --> 67.6% IPP%

The shooting numbers are probably the most alarming, but that last data point is maybe the most surprising. Last year he was involved in nearly 92% of 5v5 goals while he was on the ice. If he wasn't directly involved in the play, the hawks pretty much weren't scoring.

But not this year. His IPP% has plummeted to 67%. His on ice GF/60 is actually slightly higher than last year (even if his on ice xGF/60 has dropped). So they're scoring more goals, but Bedard's just not driving the boat like he was last year. So why is that?

The linemates excuse held a lot of water last year. It seemed like he was likely already a PPG+ player if he just had a bit more help.

Davidson went out and got him a bit more help. Teravainen is a legit top 6 forward, and Bertuzzi is a legit top 9 forward. And they added back a healthy Hall. Certainly not elite players, but it's more help than he had as a rookie, so most expected him to improve on his rookie season (myself included).

So why has the opposite happened?

If we take a look at Teravainen's season, we see that after struggling in the his first 30 games, he has been really good in his last 30.

13 points in first 30 games
33 points his last 30 games

What's notable is that Bedard was his most common linemate in the first half, but in the second half he's played with Dickinson, Foligno, Mikheyev, and Nazar. It's downright mind boggling that a player could have such better results with those guys than Connor Bedard.

Meanwhile, Bedard's 30 game scoring splits are pretty similar, despite playing primarily with TT, Hall, and Foligno in the first half, and then mostly Donato, Bertuzzi and Nazar in the second half.

24 points in first 30 games
25 points in last 30 games

These numbers, coupled with his offensive regression this year, makes me wonder if maybe the linemate factor isn't holding Bedard back as much as previously thought? Does he just need to be the guy on his line? Or maybe he just needs a true star running mate?

I think some of this fall off is a result of him trying to play better defensively. Last year, a lot of his offense was generated off the rush, where he'd cheat up ice to get free. This year, I've noticed that he's made a much more consistent effort to come back deeper in the d zone to defend down low, which obviously makes it harder to get odd man rushes. That helps to maybe explain why he's not involved in as much of his team's offense.

Unfortunately, while he's giving more effort down low, he's just not particularly good at defending. This tells me that he's best suited for wing, It's surprising that they haven't committed to that change yet.

Give him a solid play driving center and he's easily a 90-100 point guy IMO.

Really interesting breakdown, thanks!

 

[daver]

The guy is 19 and only in his 2nd season. He's also playing on a very shitty team. That said however, he's not some generational talent. Every f***ing year people talk about some new prospect being generational. Do people not realize what generational means?

He put up generational numbers in the WHL, better than McDavid's, so yes, talk of "generational" is going to come up when that is the case. Not sure many were convinced that he was on the same tier as Crosby/McDavid as a prospect.

 

[895]

Generational to me means top 10-15 player of all time. Post Mario only 4 players qualify. Jagr Ovechkin Crosby McDavid.

Bedard is absolutely not on track to be on that same tier of player.

 

[Hunter Gathers]

Generational to me means top 10-15 player of all time. Post Mario only 4 players qualify. Jagr Ovechkin Crosby McDavid.

Bedard is absolutely not on track to be on that same tier of player.

Well, the use of "generational talent" has lost all meaning at this point.

A "generational talent" should be a guy that comes around maybe every 25-years or so. I guess you could have a "generational talent" at a number of positions (F, D, G), but the way people throw it around right now has just been ridiculous.

 

[SeanMoneyHands]

 

[SeanMoneyHands]

Stop with the excuses.
Teuvo Teravainen is a legit NHL top 6 talent. Donato and Bertuzzi can also play in a top 9.
If Berard was that good, he would've been at least a 1.1 ppg play driver by now, but no...
He's just a passenger, undersized winger disguised as a center.

I have been saying it for the past 24 months, Bedard is no generational talent, it's pretty obvious by now.

Bedard is generational. Not even McDavid would be a PPG player on this brutal Hawks team.