I’ll throw out all notes First, because that’s what every hockey fan outside of Chicago wants.
It was just a Prospects game, the NHL’s version of an abbreviated summer league right before training camp. In short, it was full of players at a level that Connor Bedard has already dominated, whether at the junior level or at the World Junior Championships last December and January. It’s nothing new.
And yes, the Blackhawks will still be bad, so the hockey world doesn’t have to worry about our awkward preening and bravado just yet. But it’s coming, because of the precursor to Bedard’s hat-trick against the wreckage the Blues dug up to face him on Saturday night. Sure, there’s probably only a few NHL players on either roster for this. But players like Bedard should make them a friend on their way to becoming the face of the league. To know:
That curl and resistance, and the venom on the ensuing shot, will beat many NHL goaltenders. at. Which is the most striking, and actually the most striking thing about all his goals, is the laughable ease with which Bedard pulls it off. This is the same effort and attention you and I put into taking our vitamins in the morning, and he points his wrist at Hadoken, a puck-top cheese.
The second target is the peach:
Here’s another angle to really appreciate the ridiculousness of it:
In pitch analysis, a lot of time has been spent talking about “tunneling.” How much ‘tunnel’ did Bedard have here from under the damn dots to the far corner? Even if there was no goalie in the way, hitting that spot on the ice alone would be considered difficult. Bedard just sneezes this out. This would be the definition of pissing.
The third goal almost seems pedestrian after the first two. Yes, at this point the game is played in a “let’s just do this” kind of way, but the release. My god, the release:
That happened in a unit of time that can hardly be measured. The shot is just a rumor about the plug St. Louis had in the net.
Whatever the caveats, Bedard’s scoring instincts are unprecedented in Ovechkin land for anyone coming into the league. While teams will certainly try to push him or close him off from certain spots on the ice, that’s only a limited protection plan when every spot on the ice is his spot. That shot from under the points is a spot where teams want him to shoot from the power play, until he starts picking angles from there anyway. What if they have to reach out to stop him wherever he is? Just open the ice cream in the middle of somewhere else.
Plus, it’ll take more than a smile to keep him out of the high-scoring areas, considering his cunning and unholy release. He will go in and out of those areas at quick for any team or d-man to do a lot about it. This is a pocket-sized Nathan MacKinnon with a nitrous tank on his bulkhead. The NHL hasn’t seen a scorer with more than 70 goals in 30 years. It won’t be this season, which is fast approaching, but Bedard is as confident in his bet as the next.
It will take a while, or maybe not, before Bedard comes to terms with what the ice looks like when adults are on it with him. How those lanes close, where the hits come from, where the space is. But it won’t last that long. This comes for everyone.
Follow Sam on Twitter @felsgate and on Bluesky @felsgate.bsky.social