SAN JOSE, Calif. \u2014 At the moment Connor Bedard jammed his shoulder during a physical faceoff with Brayden Schenn in the final second of a Dec. 12 contest in St. Louis, he was indisputably one of the very best hockey players on the planet.<\/p>\n
Through his first 31 games, he trailed only Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid and Nikita Kucherov in points per game. Just as notable, however, was how he stacked up against the young man against whom he\u2019ll likely forever be measured: San Jose wunderkind Macklin Celebrini. The two rising stars were tied for third in the league in points with 44, though Celebrini had played in one more game. They were both a plus-8 despite being on poor defensive teams. They both had a 47 percent success rate at the faceoff dot. They both had their teams within 2 points of a playoff spot in the Western Conference. Bedard had four more goals than Celebrini, Celebrini had four more assists than Bedard.<\/p>\n
It was happening. All the hype was being backed up, all the unrealistic expectations were being realized. The Bedard and Celebrini era had begun.<\/p>\n
In the four months since, Celebrini has rocketed to megastardom. Entering Monday\u2019s game against Bedard\u2019s Blackhawks, Celebrini has 41 goals and 106 points, fourth in the league. He\u2019s a serious contender to win a Hart Trophy in just his second season, the way McDavid and Sidney Crosby did. He skated on Canada\u2019s top line at the Olympics and was one of the dominant players on the world\u2019s biggest stage. Most importantly, he still has the San Jose Sharks fighting for a playoff spot, something that was unthinkable entering the season.<\/p>\n
Bedard\u2019s been no slouch himself. He has 30 goals. He picked up his 40th and 41st assists Saturday night in the Blackhawks\u2019 4-2 victory over the Seattle Kraken. He\u2019s better than a point-per-game with 71 through 64. At five-on-five, he\u2019s only a minus-3 on a team that\u2019s a minus-38. But he won\u2019t put up 100 points. He\u2019s not in the Hart conversation. He didn\u2019t make Team Canada. And his Blackhawks are nowhere near the playoffs, mired in 31st place after yet another trade deadline sell-off.<\/p>\n
But Bedard\u2019s not feeling sorry for himself, not wondering what might have been had he not injured his shoulder. Far from it. He feels great about where he is as an individual, and he feels excited about where the Blackhawks are headed as a team.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never want to get hurt,\u201d he said after Saturday\u2019s morning skate in Seattle. \u201cYou always want to play as many games as you can. But that\u2019s not always going to be how it goes. I try not to look back at it too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bedard hasn\u2019t been at his best the last handful of games. Nobody on the Blackhawks has, really. In the previous eight games before the one in Seattle, he had just two goals and two assists. After a strong stretch in the first half of March that included another scoring burst from Bedard, the Blackhawks\u2019 offense had cooled off considerably, averaging fewer than two goals per game over an 11-game stretch.<\/p>\n
But Bedard hasn\u2019t slowed down any. He even went so far as to say he\u2019s creating more since the Olympic break than he was when he was tearing up the league in the first 31 games of the season. And the numbers back that up: Per Natural Stat Trick, he\u2019s creating more individual shot attempts per 60 (16.66 compared with 15.14), more scoring chances per 60 (9.72 compared with 8.22) and more high-danger scoring chances per 60 (3.17 compared with 2.93) since the break than he was before the injury. It was that interim period between the injury and the Olympic break, when he couldn\u2019t even take a faceoff, that his play might have dipped a bit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think since the break, I\u2019ve created a ton, maybe more than when I was up there in points,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel pretty good. The last five or so games for our group have been tough. But I think the first 20-some after the break, I probably felt my best that I played. We\u2019ve all been a little snakebitten for a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The only difference between the start of the season and now is that Bedard was red-hot back then. And 31 games is not a small sample size. Now? Nothing seems to be going in. Saturday night, Bedard made a sneaky-great backhanded feed to Nick Lardis for a breakaway, only to watch Lardis\u2019 shot disappear into Philipp Grubauer\u2019s glove. Back in November, that probably goes in. He still finished the night with two assists, but like seemingly every night, he could have had more.<\/p>\n
Given how dynamic he was in the offensive zone and how engaged he was in the defensive zone back then, it\u2019s easy to imagine an alternate timeline in which he stays healthy, carries that momentum throughout the rest of the season and keeps pace with Celebrini \u2014 and maybe even keeps the Blackhawks in the fight, at least little while longer.<\/p>\n
But injuries happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a tough injury, it\u2019s tough to be injured that long,\u201d coach Jeff Blashill said. \u201cThe injury came at a tough spot; he was super hot at that point. When he came back, I don\u2019t want to say he wasn\u2019t 100 percent, but he wasn\u2019t taking faceoffs, that all leads to it. And I think since, he\u2019s played good hockey, but none of us have produced at the level that I think we can and will. But certainly at that point, he had played as good of hockey as anybody in the league, for my money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blashill, as he has all season long, heaped praise on Bedard for his commitment to becoming a more well-rounded player in his third NHL season. His defensive metrics aren\u2019t great, but like Patrick Kane before him (and Celebrini, to be fair), he has the kind of skill and finishing ability that allow him to consistently outperform the expected goal shares. Beyond that, with the entire leadership group \u2014 captain Nick Foligno and alternates Connor Murphy and Jason Dickinson \u2014 dealt away at the deadline, Bedard has stepped into an even larger role within the team. He already was the face of the franchise; now he\u2019s working toward becoming the voice and the heart, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cZero doubt that he\u2019s committed to leading this team and playing winning hockey,\u201d Blashill said. \u201cHe\u2019s one of our best players, and those guys have to play winning hockey, and there\u2019s no doubt he\u2019s committed to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
That Bedard has been so productive despite playing most of the season with rookie Ryan Greene (who projects as a solid but unspectacular depth forward) and struggling veteran Andr\u00e9 Burakovsky (who has just one goal and two assists in his last 33 games) speaks to how good Bedard really is, and really can be. It seemed as if he had finally gotten a long-term, high-end running buddy when Anton Frondell, the No. 3 pick in last year\u2019s draft, came over from Sweden two weeks ago, but Blashill has since moved Frondell to center. In the meantime, Bedard has found some quick chemistry with Lardis, another rookie.<\/p>\n
Bedard was diplomatic as ever when asked if he was bummed to lose Frondell as a linemate so quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou always want to play with great players, but we have a lot of those guys,\u201d he said. \u201cI was fortunate to play with a ton of great players, and we have a lot of those guys throughout the lineup. Whether I\u2019m playing with him or someone else, I\u2019m not worried. I\u2019ll be excited with whoever I\u2019m playing with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bedard is always eager to pump his teammates\u2019 tires and said that while the record has taken a dive here late in the season, the vibe in the room is great. The new young core has grown close over the course of the season, and the realization that this group \u2014\u00a0with a few more young reinforcements on the way \u2014 is finally the group that\u2019ll be in Chicago for the long haul, has energized the team and made what would normally be playing out the string feel far more meaningful.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s always less effusive when talking about himself, of course. While Blashill said he expects \u201ca continued leap forward\u201d next season, as some of the chances he\u2019s created over the second half of the season start going in more often, Bedard coolly and consistently downplays talk of where his star sits in the hockey firmament.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s still an ever-present undercurrent of quiet confidence and defiance. The hockey world might have forgotten him just a tiny bit in the wake of Celebrini mania, but Bedard knows he belongs in the conversation, too. And with another long and productive summer back home in Vancouver looming \u2014 he hasn\u2019t had any conversations about the World Championships just yet, but he expects to chart a similar course to his transformative offseason last year \u2014 it\u2019s clear he wants to prove it next season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of grew a bit in my game and stuff (this season),\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s obviously good if you feel like you\u2019re better individually and try to carry that on, but I think our group\u2019s feeling the same way. Yeah (I feel like I took a big step), but you should. Each year, you should be getting better. I don\u2019t really look at it that much, but I\u2019m confident in myself. And I\u2019m going to get better every year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE, Calif. \u2014 At the moment Connor Bedard jammed his shoulder during a physical faceoff with Brayden…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5115],"tags":[521,37,96,5263,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-544008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-blackhawks","8":"tag-blackhawks","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-blackhawks","11":"tag-chicagoblackhawks","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116358745023968367","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}