After scoring his 50th and 51st goals of the campaign, Conor Bedard became the youngest player in WHL history to score 50 goals in a season. Today we will discuss about Connor Bedard: Elite prospects| Hockeydb| Draft year.
Connor Bedard: Elite prospects| Hockeydb| Draft year
Conor Bedard (born July 17, 2005) is a Canadian junior ice hockey center for the Regina Pats of the Western Hockey League (WHL). Bedard was awarded the first WHL player of exceptional status by the Regina Pats in the 2020 WHL Bantam Draft. Bedard will be eligible for the 2023 NHL Entry Draft.
| Connor Bedard | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Born | July 17, 2005 North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
||
| Height | 5 ft 9 in (175 cm) | ||
| Weight | 179 lb (81 kg; 12 st 11 lb) | ||
| Position | Centre | ||
| Shoots | Right | ||
| WHL team | Regina Pats | ||
| NHL Draft | Eligible, 2023 | ||
| Playing career | TBD–present | ||
Elite prospects
Move over Conor McDavid, there’s another star hockey player named Connor on the way. At just 15 years old, Conor Bedard is considered one of the top prospects eligible for the 2023 NHL Draft after a major turning point in the 2020-21 season in the Western Hockey League. The North Vancouver native averaged 1.87 points per game in his rookie season, a scoring rate higher than McDavid and John Tavares during their first seasons at the same age.
Bedard became the first WHL player to have exceptional status for playing major-junior hockey at the age of 15. He joined the likes of McDavid, Tavares and Aaron Eckblad in Canadian Hockey League history as the seventh player to receive the distinction.
In a pandemic-shortened season with the Regina Pats, a team the Islanders played for head coach Barry Trotz, Bedard recorded 28 points (12 goals, 16 assists) in just 15 games. Bedard recorded at least one point except one game, including two four-point attempts.
Hockeydb
| Season | Team | Lge | GP | G | A | Pts | PIM | +/- | GP | G | A | Pts | PIM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | Regina Pats | WHL | 15 | 12 | 16 | 28 | 6 | 9 | |||||
| 2020-21 | HV71 Jr. | Swe-Jr | 4 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 0 | -3 | |||||
| 2021-22 | Regina Pats | WHL | 62 | 51 | 49 | 100 | 42 | 0 |
Draft year
The IIHF World Junior Championships is often regarded as a 19-year-old tournament, but the 2022 edition, despite its cancellation, proved otherwise.
Canada’s Conor Bedard and Russia’s Matvei Michkov, the top two prospects for the 2023 NHL Entry Draft, quickly found themselves at ease, outranking most of the 2022 draft-eligible players.
Bedard, the youngest player at the age of 16 at the 2022 World Juniors, made history against Austria on 28 December. He joined Wayne Gretzky at age 16 to score a hat-trick for Canada and became the sixth Canadian to score four goals in a game at the tournament.
North Vancouver, BC The native started the tournament as the 13th forward in time on the second power-play unit. He played 12 minutes and 23 seconds in the first game against Czechia and went down the ramp to 14:33 against Austria.
After two games, Bedard scored four goals and an assist and led Canada in shots with 12. He was second on the team in scoring, just behind the Winnipeg Jets’ Prospect Cole Parfetti.
