Chasing Greatness: How Does The Start Of Connor Bedard’s Career Stack Up To Patrick Kane’s?
Connor Bedard’s league-leading nine-game point streak came to an end in Saturday’s loss to Edmonton, but the 19-year-old is still making history. Bedard passed Patrick Kane on Friday to record the second-most assists by a teenager in Blackhawks history in a game in Detroit where Kane was on the other bench.
With Kane and Bedard sharing the ice again and Bedard passing Kane’s mark, everyone’s focus was on comparing the two superstars. Kane was the primary factor in Chicago winning three Stanley Cups, so Blackhawks fans would be thrilled to see Bedard have anything close to that level of success.
But how does Bedard stack up to Chicago’s only other first-overall pick? His team hasn’t enjoyed nearly as much success so far as Kane’s, but the two have put up eerily similar numbers.
Through his first 110 NHL games, Kane put up 34 goals and 72 assists for 106 total points. Later in his career, Kane was obviously a premier goal-scorer, but he was more of an assist guy early on. By comparison, Bedard scored 33 goals and 66 assists for 99 points in the same span.
With the Blackhawks clearly struggling as a whole and Bedard’s defensive ineptitude being spotlighted in his first year and a half, it can be easy to forget just how good of a scorer he’s been so far. Kane has shown that production like Bedard’s in the first two seasons can turn into huge numbers later in his career, so there’s a decent chance Chicago is in for a real treat.
The comparison is even more impressive when one considers the teammates of both Kane and Bedard. When Kane came into the league, he spent the majority of his time with a prime Patrick Sharp as well as more than 1,000 minutes with Jonathan Toews. Who has Bedard spent the most time playing next to? Philipp Kurashev, who is all but off the team just a year later. The next-highest has been Nick Foligno, who is a great asset in his own right but is no Sharp or Toews. As the player spending the second-most time with Bedard, Foligno has only spent a bit over 500 minutes with him, and it’s no secret that Bedard has rarely played with the same linemates more than a few games in a row.
So what? The two players clearly aren’t quite the same – Kane is a better skater and defender. But this goes to show that Bedard is a much better scorer than what we might see on some nights. Many people, myself included, have negatively highlighted Bedard as if he’s not exactly the player we expected him to be coming into the league. But if the 19-year-old can continue to match the progression of the No. 1 pick that came 16 years before him, he’ll have matched everything that was expected of him and more.