Before playing a single NHL game, former players and hockey fans alike wonder if Team Canada and Regina Pats forward Connor Bedard will become the game’s greatest player..Bedard got 4 assists in a 5-1 Canada victory over Sweden on New Year’s Eve at the World Junior Hockey Championships. With that, the 17-year-old 5’10” forward tied Eric Lindros’s total for most points ever by a Canadian at the World Juniors (31). Bedard’s 18 points in the current tournament ties the Canadian record of 18 set by Dale McCourt in 1977 and Brayden Schenn in 2011..In Canada's previous game, Bedard netted two goals and four assists in an 11-0 victory over Austria. With that, the 185 lb forward tied Jordan Eberle’s Canadian all-time record of 14 goals. The only surprise for Eberle, now a Seattle Kraken forward, was that Bedard hadn’t done it sooner..“I’m shocked it took him so long,” Eberle said of the North Vancouver native..“Those are players that come around once every 15 years. He’s that special.”.Eberle played four seasons with the Regina Pats, Bedard’s current team. The Pats drafted him first overall in 2020 after the Western Hockey League made the Bedard the first ever 15-year-old allowed to play. Sports talk show host and former Pats broadcaster Rod Pedersen said Bedard shone from the start..“He just has a flair really to rise to the occasion. His first game, there was an immense amount of pressure. I broadcast it; he was only 15. We were playing in the bubble in the Brandt Centre in Regina and he scored two goals.” Pedersen recalled in an interview with the Western Standard..“I noticed that defensemen would try and pinch him off on the boards, and he would wiggle through. You know when a mouse slips through a crack? That's what he looked like.".“There's guys that are 20 on that team. I don't need to tell you the skill and physical maturity difference between a 15-year-old and 20-year-olds is immense.”.Bedard scored 28 points in 15 games in his first season with the Pats. Last year he scored 51 goals and 49 assists, becoming the youngest in league history to score 50 goals in a season. Before World Juniors, Bedard was riding a 27-game point-scoring streak with 27 goals and 64 points..“Connor is going to leave here [Regina] and not play as an 18-year-old. He won't have a sniff at the career points record, the career goals record, games played, he's going to be gone too soon…[Yet] he has opened a debate of, is he the greatest Regina Pat ever, which is a fun debate because the team has been around for 105 years,” Pedersen said..So, how good is Bedard? In the TSN broadcast on December 29, Jeff O’Neill compared Bedard to Mario Lemieux and Brett Hull. Pedersen, who called O’Neill “a good friend,” thinks the comparison doesn’t fit..“I don't see that. He's certainly not six-foot-four like Mario Lemieux,” Pedersen said..“Brett Hull made a living made a career of sitting in that left face off dot and shooting one-timers into the net. Connor Bedard plays at the right point on the powerplay, he's scoring from the blue line, or at least the top of the circle on his correct hand. Brett Hull was shooting on his off hand. To me it’s two totally different skill sets.”.Pedersen said Bedard’s “shot” and “shiftiness” liken him more to Marcel Dionne, who still ranks 6th on the all-time NHL list for goals and points..Moshe Lander, a sports lecturer at Concordia University, said Bedard will have significant obstacles to face on the way to meeting expectations..“That ability to perform under pressure at that young age means that he's highly marketable. And so, with marketability comes hype,” Lander told the Western Standard in an interview..“Sidney Crosby, Mario Lemieux, Wayne Gretzky, all had that same sort of attachment at that age, and they all lived up to that hype. But we can also find a whole bunch of 17-year-olds that didn't quite live up to it.”.Lander, who grew up in London, Ontario, points to fellow Londoner Eric Lindros as an example of a highly-touted prospect whose injuries curtailed his potential achievements. For his part, Lindros is cheering on the young star. In a tweet liked over 7,000 times, Lindros wrote. “Happy New Year! Don’t just break the record Connor Bedard, smash it! Win the tournament. Go Canada! #WorldJuniors.".Bedard is expected to taken first in the NHL draft this June, just like Lindros was in 1991. All teams that miss the playoffs will be eligible in the draft lottery for first dibs on Bedard, but the highest odds go to the worst teams. That, Lander said, will be Bedard’s first problem..“The draft is designed to try and create a level playing field…[but] the draft does not correct badly-run franchises. What is potentially going to interfere with Bedard's rising star beyond the things he can't control like injuries [will be]….is he going into a franchise that is structurally well run, it's just the talent pool is empty? Or is he going to a team that is just badly run?”.Currently, Chicago has the worst NHL record at 8 wins, 23 regulation losses, and 4 overtime losses in 35 games. Although the team has a proud tradition and cup wins in the not-so-distant past, the 5’10” Bedard will have heavy expectations on his shoulders..“The issue then is, is he capable of transforming a franchise? He can get 100 points on his own. But if he can't lift the Blackhawks into the playoffs, into respectability, at what point does the narrative turn?” Lander explained..“There's going to be a short window on him to start winning. And just putting up statistics alone is not enough.”.Lander said even the NHL’s last hyped up rookie and current pre-eminent player, Connor McDavid, faces the kind of criticism that Bedard might face one day..“When you're talking about is [Bedard] the next Connor McDavid—is Connor McDavid, Connor McDavid without a Leon Draisaitl with him? It's not to say that he wouldn't be the great talent that he is, but how much of that is enhanced by having a great linemate too?”.“When Bedard goes to some secondary team that doesn't even have a second-line center, is he going to be asked to do too much of the heavy lifting? Even if he grows to six feet [will] his body then be able to withstand 82 games? When you transition out of the CHL into the NHL’s slightly longer season, it's a lot more travel, and some bodies just aren't able to handle it.”.Pedersen said he wonders what it would do to Bedard to join Team Canada teammate Dylan Gunther on the Arizona Coyotes. He has hopeful expectations for Bedard, whom he says has good character, and an unusual degree of maturity and focus. For now, Pederson enjoys watching Bedard and pondering how great he might become..“There's been two other number one overall picks in Pats history too [Greg Joly in 1977 and Doug Wickenheiser in 1980], so that's not unprecedented. It's at least worth the conversation and it's a fun conversation. I want to believe he'll be a generational player. A lot of it is maturity at the National Hockey League level,” Pedersen explained..“I hope people get out and watch him in the Western Hockey League before he's gone because they're going to be paying hundreds of dollars for tickets after this year. So I hope not just Pats fans, but fans across the Western Hockey League, buy a ticket so you can say that you've seen him play because he's that special. He's just fun to watch.”
