What Blackhawks should expect from Connor Bedard’s rookie season
The Chicago Blackhawks are clearly a few years away from being a Stanley Cup contender again, but Wednesday’s drafting of No. 1 overall pick Connor Bedard clearly sped up things up a bit.
A generational talent, Bedard is the kind of franchise-changing player Cup-winning teams build around. Many scouts believe the 17-year-old center has an NHL-ready skillset and a wrist shot that may just be top 10 in the league right now. And while both may be true, make no mistake, the Blackhawks will still be bad in 2023, regardless of how good Bedard actually is.
Chicago had just two 20-goal scorers last season and no player with 52 or more points for the first time since the 1994-95 season. While Bedard’s presence will surely help, the offense still won’t score a lot of goals and the team likely won’t win many games.
Bedard will step into the No. 1-center role vacated by longtime captain Jonathan Toews. He will more than likely play on Chicago’s No. 1 power-play unit and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him fill up the score sheet. In fact, many of his new peers around the league believe he could potentially be a point-per-game player even as a rookie.
"I don't want to say I'll put a certain amount of points on it, but he's obviously a generational talent and is going to make an impact as soon as he steps foot in the League," 2021 No. 1 overall pick Owen Power told NHL.com. "I think he's going to be a guy that's going to be fun to watch for years to come and we'll see how he does this year."
Only 21 players have ever scored 80 or more points during their rookie seasons, and just four have done it since 2000— Alex Ovechkin (106), Sidney Crosby (102), Evgeni Malkin (85) and Mathew Barzal (85).
“It’s tough to put a number on guys like that,” 2015 No. 1 overall pick Connor McDavid said, via Sportsnet. “You never know what he’s going to do. He seems to exceed expectations every single time there’s one put on him so, we’ll see.”
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