201: A Bedard Odyssey
Do we know anything more about Connor Bedard after 200 games?
Perhaps no player, aside from his buddy Caleb, has to check off and get examined more thoroughly at more markers than Connor Bedard. That's part of the deal when you're the savior, when a team sacrificed multiple years to get you, and then you're the beacon of light while waiting around for your GM to add anyone anywhere near your level that might change the team's fortunes. Whatever happens with the Hawks, the entire front office can point to Bedard and say, "He will make it ok." He's the only reason anyone's buying tickets, after all.
Crossing 200 games over the weekend is yet another landmark in his career. It would be a bigger one if Bedard had a linemate in same zipcode as him, talent-wise, but we're turning into the construction workers yelling outside McDonough's window on that one. It'll happen when it happens, if it ever happens, and Kyle From Chicago just won't be rushed into it. Not until he can cycle through more of his draft picks in that spot to see if any of them can live up to the billing, even if it takes another goddamn decade.
So to Bedard. 201 games, and he's played them at a 76-point pace. Better this season, obviously, as he would be on a 96-point pace had he not gotten hurt. But through 201 games, it seems as though Bedard will just get hurt. And that earlier, furious, pre-injury pace was only two months. This is the thing with Bedard's 201 games, is that you can see whatever you want from it. If a fan wants to say he is that player of the first two months of this season, the one on his way to 116 points, you can. It's his third season, he had something to prove, this was the blossoming. If you want to dismiss it as an all-too-short spike that he couldn't maintain because of health concerns and opponents taking him more seriously, that's there for you, too.
Bedard may not have been totally healthy when he came back, which could have affected his totals in January. Certainly, not taking faceoffs suggested that all wasn't well in that shoulder. We'll only know as he gets farther from it, and by then we'll be into the last couple weeks of the season, which we know is the theater of absurd for teams going nowhere.
Let's dig a little deeper. Metrically, Bedard is...fine? His individual xG over his career is 0.76. Which isn't very high, but some of his contemporaries, or who is contemporaries are supposed to be, don't rock that much higher of a rate of the chances they get. Bedard ranks 159th amongst forwards to skate 1000 minutes over the past three seasons in that category. Some other samples for context:
Auston Matthews - 1.24
Brady Tkachuk - 1.16
Wyatt Johnsont - 0.99
Connor McDavid - 0.97
Jack Hughes - 0.96
Alex Ovechkin - 0.91
Nathan MacKinnon - 0.89
David Pastrnak - 0.88
Macklin Celebrini - 0.81
Leo Carlsson - 0.70
Logan Cooley - 0.74
So he's lagging behind the vets, on par with his class. He's played with worse players than all of these guys, even Celebrini, who at least has had Will Smith. As far as overall xGF when on the ice is 2.28 per 60. You'll find this really does lag behind the class Bedard is supposed to be in. Of all forwards to manage 1000 minutes of 5-on-5 in the past three seasons, Bedard ranks...328th. Some samples for context:
McDavid - 3.73
Draisaitl - 3.4
MacKinnon - 3.3
Crosby - 3.2
Barzal - 3.07
Jack Hughes - 3.0
Barkov - 2.97
Celebrini - 2.48
Carlsson - 2.58
Cooley - 2.70
You get it. Obviously, this is impacted by level of teammate, again. Lagging behind the aristocracy, behind his class, but not by nearly as much.
Overall possession numbers, the reading isn't much better. Bedard's Corsi-share has climbed each year, from 40.8, to 42.2, to 44.1. His xGF hasn't climbed in the same way, 42.0-41.3-42.7. More disappointingly, none of these numbers have been above the team-rate, except his xG% in his rookie season. He's below water this season. He's made the number work with a near break-even goals-for percentage, which is due to an on-ice shooting percentage of 11.7. Maybe he can keep that going for him and his linemates for his whole career. But...even McDavid has only been able to keep his and his teammate's on-ice shooting-percentage at around 10.
For all the talk of other players who started at around the same pace as Bedard and then became MVP candidates, those players pushed possession higher than their team's rate pretty much from jump street. Here's a sample of relative CF% and xG% for them:
MacKinnon - +3.54 rel Corsi%, +3.35 rel xG%
Jack Hughes - +3.52, +3.52
Draisaitl - +2.76, +5.3
Celebrini - +4.27, +3.7
Carlsson - +4.04, +3.16
So this is the most sobering reading of Bedard's 201 games. While there are plenty of players who took three to four years to score at a near MVP-rate, most all of them were able to push the play to the right end of the ice from the moment they showed up. They just had to add the nuance of finishing. Bedard at least has that last part, but it is worth asking if he the Hawks can win behind him and he can hit the heights when he spends more time in his end than the offensive one. Again, he has outrun that this season by finishing or watching his teammates finish at a sky-high rate. Is that something he can do for years on end?
This might lend credence to the idea that Bedard's future lies on a wing instead of center, where he could be paired with someone who drives play better as they're more secure in their own end and down low in the offensive end. Remains to be seen if the Hawks ever draw this conclusion.
If you do need to see something Bedard does at an elite-rate, well, here ya go:
So even with less possession, Bedard is still creating as much as anyone. It would seem a unique balance, to be able to be that efficient with the puck when not having it as much as he should. Maybe he is just that unique.
201 games isn't a drop in the bucket, but it's not wholly indicative. Again, you can see whatever you want out of this. There are roots being planted, and maybe some green shoots being seen. But there are warning lights, too. Overall, it just doesn't feel quite like the automatic god that was promised.