Where do you rank Connor Bedard as a player right now?

[blundluntman]

Great player, not sure where to rank him. His start to the season even strength wise had him on track to join some unbelievably elite company on an all time level. It's a shame his teammates are pylons and their PP is abysmal or he likely would've been pacing for around 90-100 points this year instead of hovering around ppg.

 

[BB79]

I rank him as a rookie. Once he gets 5 years under his belt I'll reevaluate.

I never said I was a scout..

 

[SeanMoneyHands]

Skillwise he's the best in the league. It's unfortunate he's spending his rookie year on a beer league team.

Really needs to work on face-offs though. He even admitted in his first game versus the pens he got owned by Crosby in the faceoff dot.

 

[TLEH]

Pretty hard to properly evaluate where he is because he is playing with the worst collection of talent in a long time.

 

[AM]

He’s a rookie. Entertainment value, top 40 or so. Winning games wise, lowest 200.

 

[authentic]

Confession- never seen him play. Watched two Blackhawks games this season (and I picked these games specifically for him), but he didn't played in any of those... Number-wise, he seems like a good player on a shitty team, but not in the same tier as rookie Crosby/rookie McDavid (even though the latter also missed significant time in rookie year), and he was advertised as such...

Whiskey devil boy knew it all along.

 

[Yepthatsme]

Without Bedard Chicago has scored 16 goals in 12 games. That mark is pitiful. They have one regulation win in those 12 games. The fact he was able to get 26 points in his last 26 games on an entire roster combined that has 1.3 goals per game without him is transcendiary.

 

[AM]

Without Bedard Chicago has scored 16 goals in 12 games. That mark is pitiful. They have one regulation win in those 12 games. The fact he was able to get 26 points in his last 26 games on an entire roster combined that has 1.3 goals per game without him is transcendiary.

Scoring goals isn’t winning games.

 

[authentic]

Wow. Have you watched Bedard play this season? He’s an elite passer. The thing that separates him from Matthews and Ovechkin at his age is the playmaking. The way he creates opportunities for himself and his teammates as a “shoot-first guy” is unreal.

Second of all, people are comparing him to McDavid and Crosby and making it sound like they had FAR SUPERIOR rookie seasons when that’s simply not true:

Bedard’s first 35 games: 33 points
Crosby’s first 35 games: 37 points
McDavid rookie szn: 48pts in 45 games

Yes, Crosby had a better rookie szn. People forget that it was the second half of his rookie szn where he took the game by storm. Bedard also plays ON A FAR worse team than what McDavid inherited. A competent PP with guys like prime Eberle, Hall, RNH and a young Leon.

The kid is going to be special. Is he a top player in the NHL right now? Obviously not. He’s only played 39 games. However, his play and production so far is just as advertised and slandering him with horrible takes is not right.

Uhh, they actually did have far superior rookie seasons, 6th in points and 3rd in points per game >>>>>> 70th in points per game after less than half a season. Not saying he won’t get much better really quickly but you can only judge what we’ve seen so far and so far it’s not too close.

 

[ijuka]

He's a first-liner. Not one of the top players, but he's a rookie on a terrible team.

Not as good as McDavid as a rookie, for sure.

 

[authentic]

Without Bedard Chicago has scored 16 goals in 12 games. That mark is pitiful. They have one regulation win in those 12 games. The fact he was able to get 26 points in his last 26 games on an entire roster combined that has 1.3 goals per game without him is transcendiary.

Without him, and Perry, and Jones and Hall and Foligno, basically every other half decent player they had has been hurt too.

 

[authentic]

The skill is there. The decision making is not there yet. Jack Hughes is a perfect example of a player who needed to learn how to protect himself on the rink. Where to go. How not to get hit. How not to get cornered when you have the puck. He doesn't put himself in those bad situations like he did during his rookie season. He now opens space for his teammates to utilize them instead of just playing a game of "watch me with the puck."

Bedard will need to learn that. You obviously see the talent; the hands, the play making IQ, the compete, and the ridiculous shot. There are times when he attempts to do way too much himself.

It's hard to rank him right now other than saying he's already playing like a 1st line player.

Hughes did a lot of watch me with the puck earlier this season, took a couple big hits and hasn’t been the same since. Bedard is just simply not good enough yet to be considered among the best in the game or even very close really.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Trash

 

[ffh]

Top 100 alltime. Sorry Malkin

 

[rynryn]

First line forward right now. If you watch him you could lay a safe bet he's Franchise quality. If chicago sucks very hard the rest of this season and the next you could look at it less as wasting Bedard's early years but instead investing in getting him top tier help. The hawks with Kane, Toews, and Keith. Penguins with Sid, Geno, and Letang. Nothing is guaranteed but if you have a tripod of three star+ quality players your team is going to be set up nicely for long term success.

 

[VaporTrail]

84th

 

[Video Nasty]

Crosby had more offensive support but not by a huge amount, scoring was also significantly lower during Crosbys rookie season compared to today. I think its fair to say Crosby was on a different level in his rookie season.

If only that were true. At a base level, it’s 1.3% higher today. There’s nothing significant about it, either way.

On the other hand, power play opportunities are down 87% today compared to the all-time high experienced in 2005-2006.

The league average was 480 PPO per team and the Penguins had 495.

The current Blackhawks have 153 through 50 games which is exactly the league average through 50 games. They on track to finish with about 250.

We don’t see 50+ goals from Ovechkin or 100+ points from Crosby and Ovechkin without that level of juicing.

It’s fine to hand Crosby full credit for playing a full stellar rookie season compared to Bedard and McDavid, and something I won’t disagree with when ranking them.

But ultimately, this is just another myth designed to fill in some of the gaps in Crosby’s career to protect him from the superstars that have come since and in the future.

Oh, and living in Mario Lemieux’s basement and being able to pick his hockey mind at will is a massive advantage not afforded to anyone else.

With health, both Bedard and McDavid would be closer than surface level results.

 

[PaulD]

Where do you rank Connor Bedard as a player right now? Top ___ ?

I have seen a very wide gap in opinion regarding this question.

Less than half a season.
Played well.
Broken jaw.

Unranked.

 

[Cats2TheCup]

He’s no Steve Yzerman

 

[1989]

In terms of forwards this season, he's roughly top 416.
In terms of overall skates, somewhere in the top 672 or so.

 

[NVious]

GOAT;
Playing for an original 6 franchise unlike other frauds McDavid/Crosby/Gretzky too scared to play for actually historically significant teams
Actually has a cool nickname "Bedsy" whereas you can't add the Y to losers like McDavid/Crosby/Gretzky
Teammates can't cope with his skill level so they need to drink their sorrows away and they then get kicked off the team rather than get MOGGED by Bedsy
Has a cool injury and not some coward injury "ohhh my leg" (McDavid), "ohh my noggin" (Crosby), "ohhh my back" (Gretzky)

 

[Skolman]

Overrated. Always has been, always will be. He will be a star player in the league but not a generational player.

This

 

[Yepthatsme]

Scoring goals isn’t winning games.

Without Bedard, they have 1 regulation win in 12 games. With Bedard they have 8 in 38 (still an embarrassing rate).

They get regulation wins at 2.5x the rate with Bedard compared to without.

 

[AM]

Without Bedard, they have 1 regulation win in 12 games. With Bedard they have 8 in 38 (still an embarrassing rate).

They get regulation wins at 2.5x the rate with Bedard compared to without.

So you’re saying replacing him with an ahl guy doesn’t help them? What’s their win rate w/o perry?

 

[Section88]

So you’re saying replacing him with an ahl guy doesn’t help them? What’s their win rate w/o perry?

Are you actually trying to argue that a 38 Corey Perry had as much impact as a guy who was almost doubling Perry up in points when he was suspended?