How much fun was last night? We finally got to watch Connor Bedard on the ice in a Blackhawks’ sweater against NHL players and oh boy did he ever do the thing. The hat trick in the prospect showcase was excused because it was against prospects. The dangles he showed us in the scrimmages were minimized by some because it was a scrimmage against teammates. But last night he faced a decent lineup of NHL players from a division rival and he put on a show. From the ovation he received when they announced the starting lineup to the roar when he set up the game-winning goal from Andreas Athanasiou in overtime, 🌼he was the highlight 🐬reel we expected and then some.
Bedard finished the night skating 21:20 with two assists and won 10 of 16 faceoffs (many of which were against Robert Thomas, an NHL center making good money). He took a couple hits but it didn’t matter — and it didn’t slow him down. He’s the good, folks.
“He reads plays very well,” Luke Richardson said after the game. “He made an unbelievable pass on the winning goal. And we saw a lot of that. He just feels comfortable with that puck, like skating in traffic he’s gonna have no trouble playing with bigger guys in this league and stronger guys. He’s got that special quality that he seems to find what he needs to do at the right time.”
“I think there’s a couple of times, all of our young D I think [Kaiser] and [Nolan] Allan and even [Kevin] Korchinski a few times I think we get pulling the puck to our backhand and we don’t get as strong a play that way,” Richardson said. “So I think that’s something for the young defenseman to learn is to stay on your forehand as much as possible and make the stronger plays because guys have such great eye-hand coordination in this league.”
“Kevin Korchinski can really skate, and he was up the ice quite a bit tonight, creating on the goal, but also another time in the third period, very similar, very confident to take that puck and go, whether it’s all the way around the zone in the O-zone. I think that’s part of his game. He felt comfortable implementing that in his game plan tonight, which is good for us.”
“I thought big Marcel played a really good third period,” Richardson said. “He had a great D-zone knocked down with his stick. And that’s exactly how we do our system when we build a wall there. And he went down the other end and made a play on the line rush and got a big hit behind the net. Got a cheer from the crowd, I think they seem to like the big guy moving around. He had a big block in the third period on the penalty kill in the D-zone.”
“I think he has to work on his faceoffs a little bit. He has to get stronger in there, a little more bulldoggish, get low. Guys like Reese Johnson, did a great job in the circle. He has to get down there and learn from that and practice with those guys in practice. It’s important, as an offensive line I put them out there for O-zone face-offs and icings and stuff. He really needs to work on that part of his game.”
