Bedard 2023-2024
A look at Bedard's season with stats and clips.
*This is a long one. Feel free to skip ahead to the end for videos. Stats were grabbed from Natural Stat Trick.
Summer is right around the cornor and soon, the NHL offseason will be in full swing. I plan on doing some player profiles on some Hawks players, focusing on their last season. I won’t be doing all of the Hawks’ players, that would be crazy. I’ll start with the rookies and we’ll see how far I get.
Connor Bedard is up first.
We’ll take a look at some of his numbers, both traditional stats (Faber enthusiast are going to love his +/-) and fancy stats (Corsi Schmorsi). I’ll also thrown in a couple of clips to support my analysis.
If you want to skip the boring numbers, just scroll to the bottom where I put the clips.
So, without further ado, Connor Bedard 2023-2024.
And yes. There will be glazing.
Season by the Numbers
(Glaze warning) Finishing with 61 points in 68 games as an 18-year-old rookie is impressive, injury and all. Bedard is an 18-year-old who played as the No. 1 center on a historically bad Blackhawks roster. And he still crushed it.
His numbers aren’t as jaw dropping as Crosby’s, Lemieux’s, or McDavid’s rookie seasons. Those three put up 102 points, 100 points, and 48 in 45 (injury) respectively. Factor in the type of team he was playing on, Bedard’s numbers are still equally as impressive. He finished with a .90 point-per-game (PPG) production rate. Looking at 18-year-olds in the last 35 years, only two other players top that, Connor McDavid (1.07) and Sydney Crosby (1.26).
Bedard scored 22 goals, tying with Jason Dickinson for the most on the Hawks. I was expecting 30 goals however, that didn’t factor in an injury or the Hawks being this bad. Had Bedard played with Taylor Hall or another high-end talented player, he would have scored a lot more.
With 206 total shots-on-goal (SOG) and 401 shot attempts, Bedard easily led the team in that category. He also had a shot percentage at 10.68%. He’s a shooter, so his shot percentage is going to be a little lower than average.
Connor also led the team in assists with 39. 17 of those coming on the powerplay, also the team’s highest. Philipp Kurashev was second with 13 and Tyler Johnson tied with Nick Foligno for third at 8 for powerplay assists.
Now here’s Minnesota’s favorite part. Bedard had a -44 +/-, which is not good. Bedard was still learning how to play center at the NHL level, which is much more unforgiving than at the junior level. Bedard is probably going to be in the minus regardless. He’s an offensive minded player, afterall. He plays like a winger at times in the D-Zone, either anticipating breakouts or cheating (which he’s going to do anyway).
But here’s the thing with +/-… team effects play such a huge factor in this stat that it’s somewhat meaningless. Sure. Bedard was bad on defense. It doesn’t take a genius to know that. However, this Hawks team was so bad (historically, may I remind you) that he was going to be in the negative no matter what.
Bottom line? Don’t be worried about his +/-. Wild fans can do that, for some reason.
Fancy Stats
Now’s the part where I add in a bunch of acronyms and percentages and blah blah blah. Nothing groundbreaking looking at the fancy stats. He played on a terrible team that was riddled with injuries.
Bedard’s Corsi was a 42.58 at 5v51, which means that while he was on the ice, the Blackhawks owned 42.58% of shot attempts. Not surprising considering how many times he’s been hemmed in his own zone.
Connor was on the ice for 37 goals for and 67 goals against at 5v5, giving him a goals share percentage of 35.58%. His expected goals share, calculated by looking at unblocked shots, shot location, and other factors contributing to quality chances, was 43.07%.
The Blackhawks generated 41.94% of scoring chances at 5v5 when Bedard was on the ice and owned 38.55% of high-danger-chances (HDC). The Hawks also scored 19 high-danger-goals when Bedard was on the ice, and a whopping 35 against.
These stats do a much better job at painting a picture of Bedard’s impact defensively than looking at +/-.
Let’s look at some data from All Three Zones.
The above player card shows how Bedard plays relative to the rest of the league. The bars that go to the right of the “Z-Score” (league average) is good, the left is bad.
Beyond Bedard’s shot, one of his biggest tools are his offensive zone entries, which would ultimately cost him a broken jaw. In fact, he excels at passing when entering the offensive zone. Bedard is far above average in terms of generating offense when passing from the center lane.
It’s not surprising he’s effective on the rush, leading the team with 17 rush attempts. It’s his strongest offensive type according to the data above. His second being his one-timer.
His puck retrievals in the defensive zone aren’t as bad as expected, but this doesn’t paint an accurate picture of his defensive game. He’s slightly above average at zone exits because he can protect the puck well when he has it. But, as we will see, that’s not why he’s been bad in the DZ.
Tape
The following clips include some snips from Hockey Truffles on YouTube (the one’s with the arrows in them).
Let’s take a break from the boring numbers and use the ol’ reliable eye test. Here are some clips that highlight Bedard’s strengths and weaknesses this past season.
Here’s an example of Bedard doing good things in the defensive zone:
In this clip, Bedard showcases his ability to enter the OZ through the middle of the ice:
The next clip shocases Bedard’s lethal shot. Notice how he changes the angle of his shot. It didn’t result in a goal but it’s a great example of Bedard’s deception on the shot.
Bedard learned pretty early on that he had to be selfish on this Hawks team. There was no talent to help him generate chances and Bedard had to create that space himself. This made it easy for defenders to taget Bedard, shut him down, and force decisions under pressure.
Bedard is excellent at utilizing his speed to enter the zone and then delay with a button-hook to set up players for chances. In the below clip, Kurachev isn’t able to generate anything, but it’s another example of how much Bedard needs real talent to play with him.
Another example from the same game:
When the Hawks do set up OZ possesion, Bedard excels at finding the soft spots in the oppenents defense and capitalizes with his wicked wrist shot.
Perhaps the best goal to observe all of this in action is his 20th during his 5 point night against the Ducks. Bedard observes Nick Foligno (CHI 17) force a turnover, keeps the puck in the OZ, then finds and attacks open space, and finishes. Notice how he creates deception by adjusting his route at the last moment.
As far as what he needs to improve, it’s his defensive zone awareness. Yes, he’s a goal scorer. But he’s also a center and needs to develop defensive responsibility.
Here, he forgets about his assignment in the DZ.
Bedard will get better in the DZ. He’s 18 and was on a Hawks team that was bad defensively to begin with. Also, with Bedard finishing the season with winning 38.9% of faceoffs, he was placed on the defensive side of the puck more often than not. Recipe for boo-boo.
Overall, Bedard had an impressive rookie season. He has some work to do but for all the hype that surrounded him last summer, he’s lived up to it. Chicago has someone special.
Let’s Go Hawks.
I look at 5v5 instead of all situations because it better paints a picture of how a player performed. For example, if we factor in all situations (powerplay, 4v4, shorthanded, etc.), Bedard’s expected goals share jumps from 43.07% to 53.44%.