Last year, everyone knew that Connor Bedard was going to be drafted first overall. The young player, who played in the West, was dubbed a generational player, and watching him rack up points by the ton in junior only added gas to his designated status.
And this season, Bedard already has 58 points in 61 NHL games. He’s on a terrible team, but racking up points isn’t exactly a big challenge for him after all.
In a few weeks’ time, Macklin Celebrini should in turn be selected first overall by whichever team wins the draft lottery. Lane Hutson’s NCAA teammate is destroying everything in his path, with 32 goals and 64 points in 37 games against adults.
Nothing less.
On the most recent episode of Processus, Mathias Brunet and Simon Boisvert had a little chat about Celebrini, and the Snake made a pretty strong statement: in his opinion, Celebrini can bring more than Bedard to a team that wants to win games.
He wouldn’t go so far as to take Celebrini in a hockey pool ahead of Bedard, but hockey isn’t just about points.
In fact, the Snake explains that Celebrini is a more complete center who will be an excellent first center who will be both solid offensively and defensively. Bedard is a real offensive bomb, but he doesn’t have Celebrini’s 200-foot potential.
His analogy with the duo of Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane is excellent: Kane was the more talented of the two, but Toews was possibly more important to the Blackhawks as he was solid in all phases of the game. Replace Toews and Kane with Celebrini and Bedard, and it all comes back to the same thing.
With the Blackhawks being bad again this year, it’s not impossible that the club will get their hands on Celebrini, which could result in a new Toews-Kane in town. That said, Bedard is playing center right now, but one wonders if he might not move to Celebrini’s wing eventually if that scenario were to materialize.
I’ve always thought Bedard’s future in the NHL was on the wing, personally, and getting hold of Celebrini would be a good reason to turn Bedard into a winger.
In any case, that said, it’s understandable that the team that gets its hands on Celebrini clearly won’t be getting its hands on an ordinary player. He may not be a guy who’ll rack up 100-point seasons, but he has the potential to be a top-quality first center for many years to come.
He may not have been touted for years as the future God of hockey (as Bedard was), but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s one hell of a hockey player, and it’s not for nothing that Antoine Roussel wouldn’t hate it if the Habs lost more games to increase their chances of getting him.
In gusto
– The Rocket win an extremely important game. David Reinbacher scored a beautiful goal in the win.
– Still!
– What do you think?
– Two scouts fired in Ottawa.
– Nice read.
– This is completely unacceptable.
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