The question doesn’t seem to be if Connor Bedard will be a good hockey player for the Blackhawks this season. It’s more a question of how good he’s going to be.
To get an idea of what Bedard’s initial foray into the NHL could look like, we went back through the debut seasons of several other No. 1 picks in their rookie seasons to see if any conclusions could be gleaned from that data.
Before we go any farther, just consider some of the names that are listed below as comparisons. Sidney Crosby. Alex Ovechkin. Patrick Kane. Nathan MacKinnon. Connor McDavid. Auston Matthews. All of these players have been all-stars. Five of them have won MVP trophies. Three of them seem to be on Hall-of-Fame trajectories and the other three would be first-ballot, unanimous inductees into that same Hall of Fame if they decided to retire tomorrow. That is the level of talent we’re talking about here with Bedard, and it is something that needs to be stated over and over again whenever the Bedard discourse begins.
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