It started on the evening of May 8, 2023, when NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly announced that the Chicago Blackhawks had won the draft lottery and the right to select the consensus first pick, Connor Bedard. Even before the Blackhawks made it official at the NHL Entry Draft on June 28, “Bedard Mania” started sweeping through Chicago.
Besides social media blowing up, fans flooded various hockey sites to order their customer Blackhawks sweater with either the No. 98 he wore in juniors or the No. 2 that was worn by his great-great uncle James, who played in 22 games for the Hawks from 1947-1951. This excitement continues and will pick up more steam as the Blackhawks approach opening night when they travel to Pittsburgh to face the Penguins in a nationally televised game.
With all of this will come some mighty expectations for Bedard and the Blackhawks. Our THW colleague Connor Smith offered a bold prediction that Bedard would join an elite group of other 21 first-overall picks and score 80 points for the season. However, there are many factors involved that will determine if Bedard and the Blackhawks can achieve any level of success in the coming seasons.
The Player Himself
The first thing to remember is that Bedard is only 18 years old. When I met him and the other prospects at the NHL Combine in June, I came away from there being reminded that most of the players who participated in this process were finishing high school. Many of them shared that only the weekend before, they had participated in their school’s graduation ceremony. Now, they were experiencing their first taste of what it was going to be like under the media spotlight that comes with being a professional athlete. For Bedard, that involved doing extra interviews, including nationally televised ones, just before the combine started. Those requests and media spotlight are not going away anytime soon.
To that end, the NHL did Bedard and the Blackhawks no favors by scheduling them for five straight road games to start the season. After that first game in Pittsburgh, they head to Boston the next night for another nationally televised game, allowing the league to appease both of their United States television partners.
Their next two games are in Montreal and Toronto, making sure that the league’s long-time Canadian franchises and media get an early look at Bedard before they send them out to Colorado for the finale of their road trip. The United Center faithful will not get their first glimpse of the young phenom until Oct. 21 when the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Vegas Golden Knights, come to town.
I get that the NHL has a golden opportunity to increase their fanbase and all that goes with it. But in doing so, they have made it very difficult for Bedard and the Blackhawks to get off to a successful start with five road games against quality teams. This needs to be remembered if the 18-year-old does not have a great deal of success at the beginning of the season.
Team Makeup
With many comparisons already to Sidney Crosby, and since the Blackhawks’ first opponent will be the Penguins, let’s take a look back to see what the roster was like for Crosby in the 2005-06 season, his first in the NHL. The first thing you notice is that there were two future Hall of Famers playing, Mario Lemieux and Mark Recchi. While Lemieux skated in only 26 games in his final NHL season, the benefit of having another first-overall pick who had a great career was a huge boost for Crosby in that first season.
Even though Crosby did score 102 points in his first season, the Penguins did not qualify for the playoffs. It was not until the following season, when the team started adding some pieces around him, such as Evgeni Malkin, that they started becoming the team that would eventually become regulars in the NHL playoffs, winning three Stanley Cups to date during Crosby’s tenure.
This is not, of course, lost on Blackhawks fans, as former 2007 first-overall pick Patrick Kane, along with 2006 third-overall pick Jonathon Toews, led the Blackhawks to three Stanley Cups of their own. In fact, teams that routinely qualify for the playoffs usually have had at least a “dynamic duo” to help in their success. The Tampa Bay Lightning, in winning their back-to-back Stanley Cups, had Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov. The Edmonton Oilers have Connor McDavid and Leon Draistail. Jack Eichel did not experience team success until he was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights, which has a solid core of veterans that allowed them to win the Stanley Cup last season.
However, this season’s Blackhawks do not yet have a second star or team depth developed, making them a long shot to qualify for the playoffs. While it would also be great to have Kane and/or Toews on the roster to serve as a mentor, that is not likely to happen. The team did add some good veteran pieces, such as the 2010 first-overall selection Taylor Hall and Corey Perry, to go along with their young talent. But it looks like the opportunity for Bedard to post Crosby-like numbers or even potentially McDavid numbers may have to wait a bit.
Organizational Support
In addition to putting the right players on the ice, an organization also has to have all the necessary support around a prospect in order for him to develop. General manager Kyle Davidson and head coach Luke Richardson will have the task of making sure that Bedard and the Blackhawks have everything they need in order for the team to threaten for the playoffs sooner rather than later. If they don’t, they could end up with a player who has struggled to succeed, such as what has occurred to Alexis Lafreniere of the New York Rangers.
Covering the Blueshirts for another outlet at the time, I saw and participated in the media and social media frenzy in the largest market in the NHL that surrounded the surprising win in the draft lottery, followed by the selection of the consensus number one selection of the 2020 Draft, Lafreniere. The usual hype and non-stop coverage that follows anything involving New York sports was only compounded by the fact that most of us were camped out at home due to restrictions placed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite having a roster that featured Igor Shesterkin, Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, and former Blackhawk Artemi Panarin, the Rangers failed to qualify for the playoffs in the 2020-21 season, and Lafreniere had a very underwhelming season. After the season, head coach David Quinn and general manager John Davidson were fired and replaced by Gerard Gallant and Chris Drury.
While the Rangers did find some playoff success in the next two seasons, Lafreniere continued to play far below the expectations of a first-overall pick. In his time on Broadway, the Quebec native has registered just 47 goals and 91 points in 216 career games, which resulted in Lafreniere recently signing a modest two-year, $4.65 million contract extension, with persistent talks that the team may eventually trade him.
Coming into this season, Lafreniere will attempt to develop to his full potential under Peter Laviolette, who will be his third head coach during his brief time in New York. While there may have been some other reasons, such as starting a career in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, that has resulted in Lafreniere’s lack of development, it is clear that the Rangers organization should also share in the responsibility for this.
Related: Blackhawks Will Need to Wisely Build Around Connor Bedard
The Blackhawks and Bedard are in a very good situation. While already having some other good young players on the roster, the team also has 20 picks in the next two drafts. Coupled with the fact that they are in a good spot cap-wise, they are in a position to thrive. However, it is not going to happen overnight. Everyone needs to realize that the development of Bedard and the other young Blackhawks is going to take at least a few years, so the hope is that everyone stays patient during the highs and lows of the coming seasons.