Teams are starting to hurt themselves in the race for Connor Bedard

Today on Daily Faceoff Live, The Athletic’s Cam Charron joined the show to discuss which teams are starting to hurt themselves in the race for Connor Bedard. 

Tyler Yaremchuk: We’re going to pick your brain a little bit about Connor Bedard and the race for last place in the NHL. He’s pretty much locked in, everyone knows it’s the Connor Bedard lottery coming on May 8. He scored his 62nd and 63rd goals of the season last night in the WHL. Incredible numbers and stuff we just haven’t seen in that league. What kind of impact can a player like that have on one of these rebuilding teams? Is he going to be worth the pain some of these organizations are going through? 

Cam Charron: Well yes, but I kind of want to qualify your last mark there, we have seen players like this in the WHL, but not really since the 80s. His goals per game as a draft-eligible is similar to that of Joe Sakic. I was with the Toronto Maple Leafs when we got Auston Matthews and in the year leading up to Matthews, we were a better team than we were in 2015 that was the McDavid year where everyone, Edmonton, Buffalo and Arizona specifically kind of fell apart. We improved a little bit in order to get Matthews. But the difference that made, getting that NHL-ready centre to come in on a third line where he was protected by Tyler Bozak and Nazem Kadri allowed him to really kind of cook. 

Cam Charron: I like the idea of Bedard going to a team that kind of has established NHL talent already, I would prefer that for him but I think wherever he goes he’s already going to be a star and if he can go to a team who has a couple of pieces up in the lineup for him he can be a real difference maker and you could see that become a team that could already make the playoffs. I’m immediately looking at Columbus, that team that bought last year and has some good pieces and prospects coming up and can surround the lineup with him. We saw him at the World Juniors and he took the stage and was the best player on that team by a mile as an under-18 player. You don’t see that, you don’t see players dominate this much, he’s opening up the league for players 17 and under like they do in Europe. He’s going to come in and legitimately be a number-one star. 

You can watch the full episode here…