Connor Bedard. He’s a generational talent who came into the NHL with as much — if not more — hype than any prospect in the history of the league. With the social media circus surrounding his junior career, he had enormous expectations to live up to in the NHL.
Bedard had a very good rookie season for the Blackhawks, even with his injury costing him seven weeks. And, at times, he’s been even better as a sophomore in the league. But the goal scoring — what he was most known for before the draft — hasn’t been there this season. Not yet.
And that’s led to a number of think pieces on the subject. And, with the hot mess that is the Chicago Bears right now with their No. 1 overall pick, there’s a projection onto Bedard that the Blackhawks could be impacting his overall development this season.
Two specifically articles in the last couple days got my attention:
- Blackhawks haven’t found consistent, effective linemates for Connor Bedard (Chicago Sun-Times)
- Why is Connor Bedardโs play trending in the wrong direction? Is it competition? Linemates? (The Athletic)
A few chunks from those pieces that made the biggest impact on me:
From Ben Pope’s piece: “Of Bedardโs roughly 242 minutes of five-on-five ice time, he has spent 57% of that time with Teuvo Terรยคvรยคinen, 42% with Nick Foligno, 27% with [Philipp] Kurashev, 18% with Lukas Reichel, 16% with Ryan Donato, 13% with Taylor Hall, 9% with Ilya Mikheyev and 7% with Tyler Bertuzzi.”
Scott Powers also pointed to the turnover on Bedard’s line this season. He included this quote from earlier this week from Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson about the line changing, but also to onus being on the forward — who, at 19, is still the second-youngest player in the entire NHL — to find a way.
โItโs our job to do that, but as a player, you have to find a way to get pucks to the net, no matter who you play with and thatโs your job and itโs our job to find who maybe works the best in whatever scenario,โ Richardson said. โKurshy probably had a slower start to the season than he would like. I know he did some video with the coaches this week and worked on the skills coach on some aspects of his game and I think he took a step last game. I think it wasnโt just his goal in overtime, I think his overall game is much better, so maybe that gets him back with Connor and even Teuvo and sometimes maybe Nick. I think thereโs a rotation there depending on what we need against a certain team. And that might be a good thing, they might be excited to be back together and they had some good chemistry last year and some good success. So, itโs something definitely to look at, for sure.โ
While I agree, the linemate flipping has been significant this season. And that got me wondering…
Bedard’s Linemates: Good? Bad?
I wandered over to Natural Stat Trick in an effort to figure out which linemates have clicked in any way with Bedard thus far this season. Here’s what I found, listing the linemates with the time on ice they have spent with Bedard at 5-on-5 and the Corsi For percentage and Shots For percentage In the order they were listed in Pope’s piece).
- Terรยคvรยคinen — 139:01 TOI, 48.11 CF%, 53.96 SF%, 5 goals for
- Foligno — 101:03 TOI, 47.42 CF%, 54.37 SF%, 4 goals for
- Kurashev — 64:55 TOI, 45.08 CF%, 51.61 SF%, 1 goal for
- Reichel — 43:52 TOI, 26.25 CF%, 31.58 SF%, 0 goals for
- Donato — 38:45 TOI, 41.67 CF%, 39.13 SF%, 1 goal for
- Hall — 32:37 TOI, 50.0 CF%, 51.61 SF%, 2 goals for
- Mikheyev –21:12 TOI, 35.71 CF%, 36.84 SF%, 1 goal for
- Bertuzzi — 17:33 TOI, 63.41 CF%, 68.75 SF%, 2 goals for
I’ve already written about the issue that is putting Reichel with Bedard. It’s a no-go from me and remains that way. Reichel is working well with Craig Smith and Pat Maroon, so why not leave that alone and let it continue to produce?
Looking at those numbers, it looks like Bertuzzi is a decent fit. But here’s what Pope wrote about that potential marriage:
“The fact that Bertuzzi ranks eighth at 7% is a big takeaway, considering he and Terรยคvรยคinen ostensibly were signed during the summer to provide Bedard with more talent and skills that complement his.
Bertuzziโs puck-battle and net-front strengths were supposed to get Bedard possession and bury his rebounds, but his slowness and lack of creativity made Richardson abandon the experiment during the preseason.”
That’s all true, and makes sense. But Foligno isn’t exactly a speed racer on the ice and they’ve done well together historically.
There’s another issue at play here that I think is impacting Bedard’s overall offensive production.
The Blackhawks Power Play
Last year, Bedard had four goals and 17 assists in 68 games on the power play. That’s 21 of his 61 points on a team that ranked 28th in the NHL on the power play (16.6 percent, only 33 goals at 5-on-4).
Thus far this season, Bedard has zero goals and six assists in 16 games while the Blackhawks are on the power play. The Blackhawks rank in the middle of the NHL (12th) with 9 goals already at 5-on-4. The Blackhawks also rank 12th in the league on the advantage, scoring 20.8 percent of the time they have a power play.
Teams are taking Bedard’s shot away on the power play. Richardson talked about that being one of the reasons he’s flipped Alex Vlasic and Seth Jones on the top unit. And the two forwards Pope mentioned being brought in to help Bedard — Terรยคvรยคinen and Bertuzzi — are tied for the team lead with three power play goals each.
Bedard has four multi-point games this season. In three of the four he has a point on the power play; in two of those games he has multiple power play assists. The only multi-point game of Bedard’s season to date in which he didn’t have a point on the advantage was opening night in Utah, when he had two even-strength assists.
From Oct. 22 to Nov. 7, the Blackhawks had a seven-game streak in which they had a power play goal. That included all five games on their recent trip. During those seven games, Bedard had five points — only one of which came on the power play, however. During those seven games, Bedard put 26 shots on net and converted 7.7 percent of those shots.
In the three games since that streak ended, the Blackhawks’ power play is an 0-for. Bedard has only seven shots on goal and none have gone int.
It certainly appears there’s a correlation between Bedard’s even strength offensive contributions and the Blackhawks’ power play being effective. That shouldn’t come as a shock; he’s an elite offensive player and the power play should generate momentum.
The Solution?
Bedard settling in with linemates would certainly help. And the Blackhawks power play being more consistently effective would help as well.
What would I do with the Blackhawks’ lines? Glad you asked! Here’s my eye-test lineup that I wouldn’t mind the Blackhawks putting out there and sticking with it for a few games:
Taylor Hall — Connor Bedard — Philipp Kurashev
Ryan Donato — Nick Foligno — Tyler Bertuzzi
Teuvo Terรยคvรยคinen — Jason Dickinson — Joey Anderson
Pat Maroon — Lukas Reichel — Craig Smith