Does Connor Bedard Hate To Lose?

He is wearing all this now. Does it bother him?

You probably saw this last night. But it's worth going over again.

It wouldn't be hard to apply every single syllable to the Hawks. As soon as the season got hard for the Hawks, they folded. Based on the way they've backed up every loss at the end of the season here with a worse one, do you think they really care? For a team that's been constantly told by their front office..

...at least until 2028, it wouldn't be a huge surprise if the whole culture is rotten. It's certainly one that doesn't include any accountability, not for the players at least. All the evidence suggest that it is rotten to the core.

Which brings us to Connor Bedard. Though we rarely hear it from him, Kyle Davidson and others can't wait to tell the press that he's all on board with this rebuild. He is patient, he knows it will take a while, and it's ok. So is he ok with it because he sees the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Or is he ok with it because...it actually doesn't matter to him that much?

Since the trade deadline, this is his team. The Hawks have turned the room over to him. He'll almost certainly wear the "C" next season. He is the face of the franchise. How would previous faces of the Hawks react to getting utterly destroyed by Carolina's AHL team? At home? Or losing to the Blues on a day when the team is honoring past greats? Or generating 15 shots against the Sabres? Or when those who cover the team are actively calling out your team's interest level? It's been basically radio silence from #98.

Maybe he's doing it behind closed doors, which would be a relief considering what we all lived through recently and the moth posing as a leader. But we'd have heard about that, too. Maybe he thinks he can lead by example. Except no one's following along.

This was Bedard's time to get a jumpstart on setting his room. These past six weeks were the out of town preview for the team he is going to run. He has a 35 xG%. He's getting his ass kicked most every night. Now, that's not the whole story. His individual xG since the deadline is 0.98 per 60, which is really good! He's been a bit undone by a 5.9 shooting-percentage in that time, and maybe things would look more rosy if a few more pucks had gone in. But giving up nearly two-thirds in possession is simply unacceptable, whatever the challenges Bedard faces on a nightly basis. He's supposed to dominate games. He's not even running shifts.

But that's been the story for Bedard. October and November hockey is important, it's when every team is basically carving out their participation level for the playoff spots. It's open, and fast, a little chaotic. It's definitely more entertaining to watch, and probably a little easier to play in. Bedard was great in that period. 37 points in 25 games.

But then he got hurt. And when he came back is when hockey is hard. Teams have their systems locked in. The newness has worn off, and the season becomes routine, if not a slog. The light at the end of the tunnel, the playoffs, is hardly visible. It's just about diligence and perseverance. Bedard has 29 points in 37 games. It's good, it's fine. What it isn't is star-level, or MVP-level. And that's the standard Bedard will be held to, rightly. Merely being Diet Sebastian Aho, offensively, isn't going to cut it, not for the billing Bedard had.

This is where we return to the fact that Bedard's teams in the WHL just weren't all that good. One missed the playoffs, one went out in the first round after finishing fourth in their division. With the way he must've lorded everyone else at that level, talent-wise, shouldn't it have been more?

It's also curious how others in the status Bedard is supposed to be a part of would have handled being told by their bosses that the first five or seven years of their careers would be spent in the abyss. Connor McDavid made the playoffs in his second season, the Oilers missed the playoffs the next two, and they fired coaches and GMs over it to placate him. Nathan MacKinnon was in the playoffs as a rookie, the Avs had 90 points in his second year, spent two years backing up, and have been a contender ever since. Imagine telling MacKinnon he would need to cool his jets for three or four seasons. Would anyone get out of that room alive?

The fear is that Bedard is happy enough to score goals, provide highlights, swag it up with the crowd, and go home. At best, he's content to bide his time. But NHL careers aren't infinite. Shouldn't he be somewhat upset at sacrificing a noticeable portion of it to Kyle's Grand Plan? He's buds with Caleb and PCA, he's seen how those guys are treated spearheading playoff teams. Doesn't he want in, badly? Nothing about him on the ice or off the ice suggests he's all that bothered.

Those vibes are absent. Give Bedard space and time, he'll score. Ask him to create his own down low, or to go toe-to-toe with a genuine #1 across from him in his own end, ask him to gut out a win for his team in the dregs of February when his teammates don't have it, and he hasn't, can't, or won't do it. And there isn't much leaking out that he's all that upset about it.

The Hawks can't know if he's a center or a wing. They can't know if he's actually going to put this team and organization on his back and take them up the mountain. And now they don't know what they're going to have to pay him, and for how long, to still have these questions. It's year three of a prospect everyone fell over themselves and had to have, the one who couldn't miss. Why are we asking all these questions?