Connor Bedard's ready to unleash his generational talent on the NHL, and bettors are sure to be targeting the rookie phenom's player prop markets. We sort through the NHL odds for our best Bedard prop picks.The Chicago Blackhawks won the Connor Bedard sweepstakes when the draft lottery took place on May 8, a day that will likely begin to turn this franchise back around to the days when it ran the league from 2010-2015.
We have seen this play out time and again over the past two decades as we look at the list of first-overall picks to go on to win the Calder over the past 17 years:Additionally, Evgeni Malkin , Gabriel Landeskog , Jonathan Huberdeau , Elias Pettersson , Cale Makar and Matty Beniers all won the Calder over that same span. Bedard is going to get plenty of run in Chicago this year, QBing the PP1 while centering the first line.
Malkin scored 33 in his rookie year, Grabner 34, Laine 36, Crosby 39, Matthews 40, and Ovechkin rounds out the group with an outstanding 52 goals in his rookie campaign. Bedard is going to get first-line minutes along with the opportunity to QB the first power play unit, so the chances will be there for a kid who was skating around 20 minutes per game during the pre-season.
In Chicago, he was the goal-scorer on the other end of Patrick Kane’s playmaking. In New York, his role has flipped, as he is now the playmaker who generates more scoring chances for others rather than himself.