Breaking down Connor Bedard’s usage with the Blackhawks — how difficult has it been?

In Chicago, Connor Bedard lives alone on an island — and help is not on the way.

The 18-year-old phenom has 11 goals and 20 points in 24 games, a 38-goal and 68-point pace made all the more impressive by how deeply desolate the rest of the roster is. A season-ending injury to would-be sidekick Taylor Hall (who played all of 10 games) has only made things more grim. 

Things are so dark that even a player as immediately talented as Bedard is struggling to stay afloat amid the wreckage around him. The Blackhawks bleed goals and chances with their best player on the ice, seemingly nullifying any edge he brings to the team offensively.

Advertisement

Some of that is on Bedard — it’s rare for a teenager to burst onto the scene with above-average defensive chops, especially one with his physical stature. Some of that is on the environment around him — it’s rare for any player to have usage this extreme, let alone a teenager.

Finding the balance between the two is tricky as there still isn’t much of a consensus on environmental impact. Models can do their best to account for competition and teammate quality but there will still be edge cases at the extremes. Bedard’s usage is definitely at that extreme.

That’s a major reason Bedard ranked only ninth among rookies in Net Rating in the first Awards Watch of the season. To anyone who has watched even a second of Bedard this season, that ranking felt incredibly off. While his extreme usage was mentioned as a reason why his poor Defensive Rating can be partially absolved, it’s also something that should be explored more in-depth (and probably before releasing said ranking, oops). 

Just how extreme is it?

Teams usually put No. 1 picks in a strong place to succeed from the get-go with regard to who they play with.

It’s hard to do things alone and it’s nice to have a friend. Nico Hischier had Taylor Hall. Hall had Jordan Eberle (as did Connor McDavid and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins). Nathan MacKinnon had Gabriel Landeskog. Jack Hughes had Kyle Palmieri. Those players were their most common forward linemates, each a bona fide top-six talent at the very least.

Bedard has Philipp Kurashev, who entered the season as a fourth-line caliber player (if that) and has been fortunate to be stapled to Bedard for 66 percent of the rookie’s minutes at five-on-five. On average, the sidekick to a No. 1 pick has a projected Offensive Rating of plus-5.5 and Defensive Rating of minus-1.1. Kurashev falls well below that with and without the puck, grading out as the worst sidekick since at least 2010.

That may even be generous to Kurashev. Going into the season, his Offensive Rating was projected to be minus-3 with a Defensive Rating just under minus-6. That he currently lands where he does has more to do with him getting more minutes, specifically with the team’s best player. From year to year, the only thing that’s changed is his primary assist rate and it’s hard to believe that’s legit when he graded out as one of the league’s worst passers last season based on data tracked by Corey Sznajder. 

It’s bleak … and that’s Bedard’s “top” option. Players have more than one teammate and that’s where things look even worse for Bedard. The Blackhawks don’t have a single forward with an above-average Offensive Rating. That wasn’t the case for the other rookies. Auston Matthews and Alexis Lafrenière show up near the bottom of the list above, but their next most frequent linemates were William Nylander and Mika Zibanejad, respectively. Chicago doesn’t have one of those for Bedard. No, Bedard gets Nick Foligno on the opposite wing instead. Woof. 

Averaging the projected ratings of everyone Bedard plays with (weighted by how often he plays with them) reveals that his teammate’s average Offensive Rating is minus-1.4. His teammate’s average Defensive Rating is slightly worse at minus-1.6.

Advertisement

It’s not uncommon for a top pick to have weak defensive teammates — they are joining one of the previous season’s worst teams, after all. The average of the 12 other picks is minus-1.3, a shade better than Bedard’s. The big difference is on offense and puts into context just how impressive his current scoring pace is. 

Only two of the 12 top picks played with below-average offensive teammates: Juraj Slafkovský and Nail Yakupov, unsurprisingly. And the average was plus-0.7, over two goals better than what Bedard is playing with. But that number is actually muted by the fact that very few of these players played in front of an offensively competent defense group. Looking only at the forwards paints a much starker picture. 

The average forward Bedard plays with has a projected Offensive Rating of minus-1.4. Only Slafkovsky is also below zero at minus-2.3. The other 10 are at plus-2.6 on average, headlined by Hischier. Imagine Bedard playing with that version of Hall instead.

Bedard doesn’t have much help at either end of the ice, but this makes his already strong offensive numbers look even sharper. In a better environment with more support, a point-per-game season would be well within reach.

Teammate quality is only one side of the coin when it comes to usage — opponent quality matters, too. And it’s another area where Bedard suffers.

With Bedard being the only serious threat on the team, opposing teams have had no problem going power versus power in most games. There are drawbacks to that approach, but those are limited when facing a defensively weak rookie who can be exploited thanks to the lack of capable support around him. Their best will often beat Chicago’s best and that means a lot of time spent hemmed in the zone for Bedard and company. And a lot of goals against.

Advertisement

I don’t think Bedard can be completely absolved from his defensive woes — there’s a reason opposing teams have no trouble matching up that way against him — but the degree of difficulty he’s faced so far is noteworthy. 

There’s a reason many analysts ignore competition quality and that’s because the range most players fall into is usually smaller. Coaches have a lot more control over who a player plays with compared to against. This shows up when looking at the average Offensive Rating for opponents of past No. 1 picks. We’re talking nearly one goal total, from Yakupov with the easiest minutes (minus-0.5) to McDavid with the second toughest (plus-0.6). There probably isn’t much separating 10 of these rookies. Nico Hischier is the exception to that rule, having faced an average Offensive Rating of plus-1.2. 

Where’s Bedard? At plus-1.9, naturally. (For context, Patrice Bergeron was at plus-2.0 last season.)

Bedard has played a lot fewer games than the other 11 rookies listed here so there’s room for his competition to lessen as the season rolls on. It seems as if the Blackhawks have recognized that too in recent games with his matchups looking less daunting.

But if we’re talking about why his defensive numbers are currently weaker, this is obviously going to be a big reason why. He is getting a steady diet of the opposing team’s best every night.

Since 2010, there have been 12 forwards selected No. 1. Only one has had worse teammates than Bedard. None have faced tougher competition than Bedard. His minutes have been extremely hard. 

That’s going to be difficult for any model to suss out. Most have systems in place that work for most of the league — but they probably won’t work quite as well for Bedard who is in an incredibly unique situation. That it’s extreme at both the teammate and competition level makes things even more challenging as it’s possible the two extremes don’t simply add together; instead, they may multiply the problem. 

It’s difficult to know how big of an effect this all has on Bedard’s current numbers. But we can attempt to measure how difficult his life has been at both ends of the ice for illustrative purposes at the very least. For offensive difficulty, that’s adding the opponent’s Defensive Rating with his teammate’s Offensive Rating. For defensive difficulty, it’s the opposite (opponent Offensive Rating and teammate Defensive Rating). 

Over 82 games, Bedard’s total difficulty would equate to 5.1 goals — 1.6 on offense (second hardest) and 3.5 on defense (hardest). The next most difficult is Slafkovský’s (who perhaps shouldn’t be written off yet for this reason) at 3.7 and the average for everyone else is 1.0. That’s a sizeable difference.

That’s important context when looking at any of Bedard’s numbers this season; context that should’ve been referenced in the first edition of Awards Watch rather than mentioned in passing before measuring. Again, I’m not sure how big the effect actually is when applied to Net Rating (I don’t have the system in place to measure usage this way for every player yet), and it probably isn’t a simple one-to-one translation. But at the very least it should help bridge the gap between some of his current numbers according to this model and his perception.

Advertisement

Bedard is a special talent who has somehow lived up to the hype early on in his NHL career. That he’s done so under some of the most difficult circumstances in the league and the most extreme environment in recent memory for a No. 1 pick makes him all the more impressive.

Now, please Chicago, give this kid some help so he can shine even brighter.

Data via Natural Stat Trick

GO DEEPER

What could an NHL in-season tournament look like?

(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)