A team finishing poorly this season has a chance to win a big prize.
That’s Regina (Saskatchewan) Pats 5-10, 185-pound center Connor Bedard, 17, a generational talent who was confirmed as the top North American prospect in NHL Central Scouting’s midseason rankings.
He has been considered the top pick for 2023 for years and had added to that this season by being named tournament MVP (23 points in seven games) at the world junior championship. He leads the Western Hockey League with 85 points in 34 games (including an active 32-game point streak) after getting 100 points in 62 games last season. Held off the scoreboard in the CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game on Jan. 25, he followed up with a four-point game.
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With the winner of the draft lottery in April able to move up only 10 spots this year, the bottom 11 teams have a chance to land Bedard. Here’s a look at the teams with the best chances, starting with the last-place team (stats as of Jan. 31; this file will be updated at various points during the season).
The Blue Jackets made an offseason splash by signing Johnny Gaudreau, so being last is a big surprise. The team has been beset by injuries, including to No. 1 defenseman Zach Werenski and forwards Jakub Voracek and Gustav Nyquist. Columbus announced that Nyquist (shoulder) is likely to miss the rest of the season, meaning they won’t be able to trade the pending unrestricted free agent.
The Blackhawks were expected to finish low after parting ways with Alex DeBrincat, Kirby Dach, Dylan Strome and Dominik Kubalik in the offseason. But they won seven of their 10 before falling 7-3 to the Edmonton Oilers. The Blackhawks have plenty of unrestricted free agents who could be moved at the deadline, ranging from Max Domi and Andreas Athanasiou to franchise players Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews (who would have to waive their no-movement clauses).
The Ducks had fallen briefly into 32nd place but escaped by winning three in a row, including a victory against the defending champion Colorado Avalanche. They still have the league’s worst goal differential at -80. General manager Pat Verbeek dealt pending UFAs Josh Manson, Hampus Lindholm and Rickard Rakell near the trade deadline last season. This year’s UFA list includes John Klingberg and three other defensemen.
The rebuilding team suffered a key loss with defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere going to miss four to six weeks with an upper-body injury. He was second on the team with 29 points and second in ice time behind defenseman Jakob Chychrun. They followed the news with a dominating 5-0 win against the St. Louis Blues. The Coyotes had lost 12 of their last 14 games before that, and their road losing streak is at 16 games. Bedard would be a good selling point as voters choose whether to approve a new arena in Tempe during a May special election.
First-year general manager Mike Grier made a trade on Jan. 25, though it didn’t involve resurgent defenseman Erik Karlsson or pending restricted free agent Timo Meier. He got back defenseman Jacob MacDonald and forward Martin Kaut from the Colorado Avalanche for forward Matt Nieto and defenseman Ryan Merkley. The Sharks have gone 1-0-1 since the trade.
Things are moving rapidly on the Canucks’ “major surgery.” They traded captain Bo Horvat to the New York Islanders on Jan. 30 for Anthony Beauvillier, Aatu Raty and a top-12 protected first-round draft pick. Horvat has 31 goals, compared to nine for Beauvillier and two for Raty in limited action. The deal follows the firing of coach Bruce Boudreau and hiring of Rick Tocchet, who has gone 2-1. They earlier signed forward Andrei Kuzmenko to a two-year, $11 million contract extension and announced that Ilya Mikheyev, a free agent signee who played 45 games despite tearing his ACL in preseason, will have season-ending surgery.
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Just as the Canadiens were escaping a 1-9-1 free fall, the injuries began piling up. The biggest was No. 2 scorer Cole Caufield, who chose to have season-ending shoulder surgery with the team unlikely to make the playoffs. The injured players include Brendan Gallagher, Jonathan Drouin, Jake Evans and No. 1 overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky. Goaltender Jake Allen has returned from an injury, but the team has lost five of the last six games. Montreal, which finished last in 2021-22 and won the lottery, also holds Florida’s first-round pick, but the Panthers have moved out of the bottom 11.
Other teams
St. Louis Blues (23-25-3, 49): The streaky Blues (eight game losing streak, followed by a seven game winning streak, are heading in the wrong direction again with five consecutive losses. Pending UFAs Vladimir Tarasenko and injured Ryan O’Reilly could be trade deadline targets.
Detroit Red Wings (21-19-8, 50): The Red Wings had a chance to leapfrog the Islanders and escape the Bedard watch, but they were shut out 2-0 by New York on the final game of a stretch of three games in four nights. Tyler Bertuzzi, who has been hurt three times this season, is a pending free agent.
Philadelphia Flyers (21-21-9, 51): They pushed their way back to .500 after ending a 10-game winless streak and have gone 3-2-2 since being blown out by the Boston Bruins. Zack MacEwen will miss five weeks after his jaw was broken in a fight.
Ottawa Senators (24-23-3, 51): The Senators enter the All-Star break with four consecutive wins as the team starts jelling after major offseason additions. One of those, Claude Giroux, has five goals and three assists during the streak.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Which NHL team has best shot at drafting Connor Bedard at No. 1?