Chicago Blackhawks' Connor Bedard plays in his first regular season NHL hockey game against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Gene J. Puskar
BROSSARD, Que. – Connor Bedard is on quite the road trip to begin his NHL career.
The hockey phenom and No. 1 overall draft pick played his first game Tuesday in Pittsburgh against Sidney Crosby and his second Wednesday against the Presidents’ Trophy champion Boston Bruins.
On Saturday night, he’ll take the ice at Bell Centre for his first NHL game in Canada as the storied Montreal Canadiens (0-0-1) host his Chicago Blackhawks (1-1-0).
Pressure? Too much attention? The 18-year-old from North Vancouver, B.C., says he’s used to it after a high-profile junior career that was highlighted by a record-setting performance at last year’s world juniors.
“I’ve been dealing with it for a while, I think I’ve gotten better every day with all that,” he said.
As for the on-ice adjustments, Bedard appears to be fitting in just fine. He earned his first point, an assist, in his first game against the Penguins before scoring a first-career goal in his second Wednesday night in Boston, and led all Chicago skaters in ice-time for both games.
Chicago head coach Luke Richardson says the speed with which Bedard is adapting to the game is what separates him from other players. And the media attention that comes with being that special a talent comes with the game.
“He’s already making adjustments on the fly where sometimes it takes young guys months, maybe years to do that,” Richardson said. “That’s just why he is at an elite level because he does take information and he wants to be out there in the pressure situations, he doesn’t mind this media attention that goes along with it because that’s the way it goes.
“If you want to be the best you’re going to have lots of attention.”
On top of it being his first game in Canada, it’ll also be his first time featured on “Hockey Night in Canada,” making the experience that much more special.
“You grew up watching ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ as a kid, I remember always getting really excited for Saturday … we always tuned in, and obviously it was it’s kind of a tradition,” he said. “It’s really exciting to be in a Canadian city for their home opener. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis says what impresses him most about Bedard is his shot, but that the young talent has pretty much everything except size at five-foot-10.
St. Louis, at five-foot-eight, was one of the smallest players in the NHL throughout his career. Bedard says watching St. Louis build a Hall-of-Fame career despite being called “too small” is something he looked up to as a kid.
“I was someone that got told they were too small growing up a bit too, so just seeing a guy like that doing it and at the highest level, you can always look at that and be like, ‘OK, he’s doing it then it’s not impossible,'” said Bedard. “I never thought it was impossible, but it’s it’s cool to kind of see that example and just see the career he had.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 13, 2023.
