Hockey’s next big thing is headed to Chicago

This is an excerpt from The Buzzer, which is CBC Sports’ daily email newsletter. Stay up to speed on what’s happening in sports by subscribing here.

While the NHL’s eight remaining playoff teams battle for the Stanley Cup, another highly coveted prize was awarded last night. Chicago won the draft lottery and the chance to select 17-year-old phenom Connor Bedard, the most exciting hockey prospect since Connor McDavid entered the league eight years ago.

Like McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky before him, Bedard was touted as a “generational” talent long before becoming eligible for the draft. In 2020, the North Vancouver native was the first player ever granted “exceptional” status by the Western Hockey League, allowing him to join the Regina Pats a year early. The COVID pandemic cut his rookie season short, but Bedard scored 12 goals in 15 games before becoming the youngest 50-goal scorer in WHL history the next year. He exploded for 71 goals in 57 games this past season, plus another 10 in a seven-game playoff defeat.

Canadians started hearing more about Bedard leading up to the ill-fated world junior championship that began in late December 2021 in Edmonton. The tournament was abandoned after just a few games due to COVID outbreaks, but not before Bedard became the youngest player ever to score four goals in a single contest. When the event was rebooted last summer, Bedard scored four times in seven games to help Canada to the gold medal.

WATCH | Chicago lands No. 1 pick in NHL draft lottery:

Chicago captures 1st overall pick at NHL draft lottery

Chicago will have the first overall pick at the 2023 NHL draft after winning the draft lottery Monday night in Secaucus, N.J.

Bedard’s national — and international — profile skyrocketed at this year’s world juniors in Halifax, where he put together one of the most dazzling performances in the event’s history. As the youngest player on the Canadian team, Bedard racked up nine goals in seven games (including his jaw-dropping OT winner in the quarter-finals vs. Slovakia ) and finished with 23 points — a Canadian record for a single world juniors and the most by anyone in 30 years. More than that, Bedard elevated every Canadian game to must-see TV as he helped his team to another gold.

Though he’s on the small side (generously listed at 5-foot-10 and 185 pounds), Bedard has erased concerns about his size at every level with his deceptive strength, incredible vision and magnificent range of abilities with the puck. His shot is already the envy of some of the best players in the world. “It’s remarkable to see,” McDavid marvelled to ESPN’s Emily Kaplan. “He shoots it so hard and with such a quick release.” Nathan MacKinnon called that release “one of the best in the world [right] now.”

Chicago must not believe its luck. After finishing third-last in the overall standings, it had only an 11.5 per cent chance of winning the lottery. Instead, just as the era that produced three Stanley Cups in the 2010s came to a close this season with Chicago trading away former MVP Patrick Kane and announcing that longtime captain Jonathan Toews will not be back, the team gets to transition straight into the Bedard age. Whether Chicago’s good fortune is deserved is another matter. The organization is less than a year and a half removed from settling a lawsuit with former player Kyle Beach, who alleged he was sexually assaulted by an assistant coach during the team’s 2010 Stanley Cup title run.

From a business standpoint, Bedard’s landing in Chicago is good for the NHL too. This is an Original Six team with a passionate fan base, located in one of the biggest and most beloved cities in North America. Surely, commissioner Gary Bettman and the rest of the league office are glad Bedard is going to the Windy City rather than, say, Columbus, Arizona or even L.A.-adjacent Anaheim, which had the best odds of winning the lottery after finishing dead last in the league this season. The TV execs at ESPN and Turner, who are in the second season of their seven-year U.S. rights deal, must be thrilled too.

Last night’s draw was held behind closed doors before the results were revealed to the public. To quash any potential conspiracy theories, the NHL published a video of the Bettman-conducted drawing and made it known that several prominent journalists watched in person as the ping-pong balls bounced the league’s way. Now it just needs Bedard to live up to the hype.