Countdown to Connor Bedard: NHL draft day provides a ‘defining moment’ for the Chicago Blackhawks

Faithful followers of NHL superstar Connor McDavid refer to him as “McJesus,” but it’s prospect Connor Bedard who’s being treated like the second coming now.

Projected to be the No. 1 pick by the Chicago Blackhawks in Wednesday’s first round of the two-day NHL draft in Nashville, Tenn., Bedard basically has been deified since he was 13.

Fans of opposing Western Hockey League teams flocked to see him whenever his Regina Pats came through their Canadian town last season. He even sold out the Scotiabank Saddledome, the home of the NHL’s Calgary Flames, when the host Calgary Hitmen opened the upper level to accommodate the demand.

Videos everywhere have parsed his 71 goals last season, when he finished with 143 points in only 57 games.

Bedard’s Hawks jersey doesn’t officially exist, yet customized versions have popped up on social media timelines — as well as during an ESPN broadcast of a New York Mets-Yankees game.

A YouTube video with 38,000 views shows Bedard dodging a random hand reaching out to touch him as he takes the ice.

Everyone wants a piece of Bedard these days.

“The media coverage today, it’s two or three times more than what it was for Connor McDavid. It’s just nonstop,” Dan Marr, director of NHL Central Scouting, told the Tribune.

From attending Stanley Cup Final festivities to working out at the scouting combine in Buffalo, N.Y., Bedard “was hounded the entire way by — I use the word ‘vultures’ when it comes to the professional autograph hounds,” Marr said. “And then there’s just the fans that just want to be in contact, say that they saw him, get a chance to meet him.

“He’s handled that amazingly well.”

The hype will reach a crescendo Wednesday — and absolutely explode in Chicago — assuming the Hawks draft Bedard with the first pick, thus designating him the heir apparent to the franchise’s only other first-overall pick: three-time Stanley Cup winner Patrick Kane.

But who’s kidding who? There would be rioting on Madison Street if they didn’t select Bedard.

The Hawks’ business side already has been seeing bellwethers of what the 17-year-old center can bring to the bottom line.

As of last week, 90% of last year’s season ticket members have renewed their plans for the fall, according to Jaime Faulkner, president of business operations. That includes a 10% spike since May 8, when the Hawks shockingly won the NHL draft lottery despite third-best odds.

“We had prepared to have our ticketing team ready to go should that happen. So (on lottery night) we immediately sent the staff back upstairs when we knew we were top three,” she told the Tribune. “And then the phone started ringing as soon as that (No. 1 pick) card flipped over and really hasn’t stopped since then.”

As Marr put it: “When Chicago won the lottery, it was a franchise-defining moment.”

The Hawks have sold the equivalent of 3,000 new full-season tickets.They’ve added 40,000 followers across their social media channels. Presale orders for the eventual No. 1 pick’s jersey have picked up, as have requests for other merchandise.

Free tickets for the draft watch party at The Salt Shed in Chicago have been scooped up, though the Hawks might make a few walk-up tickets available.

“It’s high demand right now,” Faulkner said.

To understand the fervor, you have to dig into what makes even veteran hockey heads enamored with Bedard.

Marr, a longtime scouting expert who’s not given to hyperbole, said Bedard “has got the same offensive attributes as Patrick Kane when he first came into the league, where he’ll just go in and contribute offensively. He is as real a deal as you’re going to find.”

John Paddock, the Pats general manager and head coach (and a former NHL, GM, coach and player), took it a step further.

“He has a lot of the same traits as (Tampa Bay Lightning forward Nikita) Kucherov and Kane do, with his ability to make plays,” Paddock told the Tribune. “If he doesn’t shoot better now, he will shoot better than those guys.”

Marr, Paddock and others who’ve crossed paths with Bedard’s paint the picture of a teen who’s intense and irreverent, immensely confident yet humble — a prodigy who has been groomed for this moment for a long time.

‘Any time a player gets exceptional status … you pay attention’

There’s been a consistent thread since Bedard started playing youth hockey in North Vancouver: moving up to compete against older kids.

If he wasn’t already drawing attention in hockey circles, he certainly announced his presence with 64 goals and 24 assists in 30 games for West Van Academy’s bantam team in 2018-19, and he was named most valuable player of the Canadian Sport School Hockey League’s under-15 prep division.

The Hockey News, noting five straight games with a hat trick of that season, anointed him ”the future of hockey” in a November article. He was 13.

The next season, a 14-year-old Bedard put up 43 goals and 41 assists in 36 games in under-18 competition.

The following year, Hockey Canada granted him “exceptional status” to play in the junior hockey WHL at age 15. He was one of only seven players in CHL history to receive permission.

“Anytime a player gets exceptional status to play in the Canadian Hockey League, right away they’re there on that platform,” Marr said. “You pay attention.”

Bedard recorded 12 goals and 16 assists in 15 games for Regina, where his mother, Melanie, moved to be with him.

Still 15, he made the Canadian under-18 team and put up seven goals and seven assists in seven games in the International Ice Hockey Federation’s World Junior U18 championship. His goal and assist in the gold-medal game helped Canada beat a Russian team that featured draft rival Matvei Michkov.

Bedard was named MVP of this year’s World Junior under-20 tournament after scoring a Canadian-record 23 points (nine goals and 14 assists).

“I’ve never seen a player as a 17-year-old playing in the 19-year-old tournament at the World Juniors dominate the way he did and impact the way he did with his scoring and timely goals,” Marr said.

Current Hawks prospects Kevin Korchinski, Nolan Allan and Ethan del Mastro played with Bedard on that team.

Korchinski, the No. 7 pick by the Hawks last summer, said of Bedard: “He’s got everything. He’s got the shot, the hockey IQ, he knows how to score, he knows how to pass. So to play with a guy like that and seeing what he did at the World Juniors, it’s going to be crazy, it’s going to be awesome.”

The IIHF named him its first male player of the year on Monday. Earlier this month, he became the first player in CHL history to sweep the Player of the Year, Top Prospect and Top Scorer awards at the Memorial Cup.

‘That’s kind of his personality, really funny’

Regina Pats forward Tanner Howe admits he was “pretty nervous” meeting his famous future linemate for the first time, but he quickly found Bedard to be down to earth — and “really pretty superstitious.”

Howe said his friend almost religiously keeps to his nap and pregame meal routine.

He added Bedard’s public persona doesn’t reveal “how outgoing he is, how he always wants to do fun stuff and is just a chatterbox.” Howe and other former teammates pointed to Bedard’s June 5 appearance on “NHL on TNT,” when he reveled in sitting on a panel with Wayne Gretzky and other former players.

“He was kind of going after Paul Bissonette,” Howe said. “That’s kind of his personality, really funny, and that’s something not everyone knows about. We see that every day from him, but a lot of the media kind of sees him as almost serious.”

Paddock, Bedard’s coach and GM, said the prospect strives for normalcy. He recalled a recent instance when Bedard was flying back to Vancouver, “he was basically mobbed by people. But he went home, he had lunch and then shot the puck all afternoon in his yard.

“I’m not sure what else he does other than focus on hockey.”

Bedard is adept at compartmentalizing the fanfare, said Marr, whose scouting staff ranks the draft candidates and places Bedard No. 1 overall.

“I look at the things that the analytics don’t tell you,” Marr said. “I use the words composure, consistency, compete, character. And when I apply those four C’s to Connor Bedard, he’s just at a level that I’ve never seen in another player.”

‘He has a God-given feel for the game’

Bedard grew up a fan of Pittsburgh Penguins great Sidney Crosby — and he has drawn comparisons to him too.

Yet Bedard, listed at 5-9 3/4 and 185 pounds, doesn’t have Crosby’s size (5-11, 200) or defensive game.

And he doesn’t have McDavid’s speed, but who does? So where does Bedard fit?

“I’m not a fan of the phrase ‘generational player.’ It kind of gets overused quite a bit,” said Marr, who has been in scouting since 1990. “(But) in my time in scouting, Sidney Crosby was one of the first where I would use that term. Then the next one was Connor McDavid. And now Connor Bedard deserves to be in that same conversation.

“What stands out is the quickness in which he can execute on the play, whether that’s his release, reading the play and being in position (or) just getting to the net and getting through the defenders.”

Added Paddock: “He has a God-given feel for the game, a vision to see things on the ice that other people may not see and then be able to execute it.”

He doesn’t see Bedard’s frame as a problem. He’s still developing and will turn 18 on July 17.

“Size is less of a factor now,” Paddock said. “Connor’s a thicker build, but size is never going to be a detriment. It’s not like he’s a super small guy.”

‘My phone started blowing up’

If Bedard lives up to everyone’s best-case scenario, the draft lottery on May 8 might become one of those “what were you doing that night” moment.

Several in the Hawks organization remember where they were when “it” happened — the lottery balls came up “4-5-9-13” to defy 11.5% odds to hand Chicago the top pick.

Nolan Allan, the Hawks’ 2021 first-round pick, and fellow top prospects Korchinski and Colton Dach were playing for the WHL Seattle Thunderbirds in a playoff game against the Kamloops Blazers.

“We had just gotten to the rink and we were taping our sticks, and our trainer actually had it (the lottery) on his iPad,” Allen said. “We had to go in for a power play meeting and when we came out the guys were saying, ‘Chicago, won! Chicago won!’ Me, Kevin and Colton jumped up.”

Korchinski admitted feeling weird, like, “Did that really happen?”

Hawks CEO Danny Wirtz recalled his reaction when NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly turned over the No. 1 card.

“I don’t know if I can repeat the word or series of words,” Wirtz told the Tribune, “but I did leave my body for a few minutes there and went on a hugging rampage with the staff because it was just so exciting.”

Unlike the TV audience, who got an inkling of the team’s lottery luck when commentator Kevin Weekes prematurely revealed during a commercial break that the Columbus Blue Jackets fell to the third spot, some of the Hawks’ top brass remained in the dark.

“We had the live ESPN feed, so when it went to commercial break, we didn’t see that. My phone started blowing up,” Faulkner said. “‘You’re top two! You’re top two!’ I’m really confused. I ran over to Danny and said, ‘Have you seen that?’ He hadn’t seen it either. When it came back and Columbus was (No.) 3, we all started freaking out.”

‘They can reignite this city’

Everyone should have the luck of Mike Doneghey, the Hawks director of amateur scouting.

In his second season as chief scout, he’ll have had five first-rounders when the dust settles.

Doneghey, who consistently has sung the praises of projected No. 2 Adam Fantilli, has been steadfast that this year’s draft has four, maybe five, foundational players at the top of the order — though more surprises could turn up among later picks.

Along with the No. 1 pick, the Hawks also have No. 19 in the first round and four second-round picks, plus two in the third round and one in the fourth, fifth and seventh.

Asked about Bedard, Doneghey laughed.

“I technically can’t even talk about the kid,” he said. “But if you talk about it in general terms of what that type of (top-tier) player, name aside, can do, if we’re right about them and it’s as good as we think those players are going to be, they can reignite this city and get everybody excited about hockey.”

Wirtz, who also avoided mentioning Bedard before he’s picked, fashions himself a cautious optimist.

“We’ve obviously had high picks, some have panned out, some haven’t,” he said. “But to actually have an opportunity to take No. 1 in a draft that is so strong and the players are so talented, it’s such an important piece for the organization.

“It represents one of the component pieces of another era of Blackhawks hockey.This really is a real signifier of that next era we’re about to go into.”

It also means an energized fan base has mentally turned the dial another notch on the Hawks rebuild.

“That’s a good thing,” Wirtz said. “Fans having higher expectations is never a bad thing for an organization because they’re passionate and they want to see winning hockey.

“Our challenge will be to continue to communicate where we’re at in that journey, because I do think we’ve been really clear and from (general manager) Kyle (Davidson) on, that it’s going to take more than a single player to build a championship-caliber team.

“And so whether that’s one, two, three, four or five years, we have to be really clear with our fans as those pieces come together.”

From his vantage from the Hawks’ ground level, Allan sees these developments more as providence.

“It’s pretty crazy how everything’s sort of working out right now,” he said. “(I’m) just super excited for the future and excited to get to camp and see (Bedard) and the guys and get started.”

And it starts with the Hawks picking the second coming.