How is Blackhawks’ Connor Bedard this good as an NHL rookie?

Connor Bedard is an 18-year-old who’s been billed as a franchise savior, the NHL’s next generational talent, and someone who is expected to win trophies ranging from rookie of the year to a Stanley Cup within the next decade.

Connor McDavid is familiar with these expectations. He was Bedard before there was a Bedard.

Cameras were ubiquitous before he was old enough to have a driver’s license. People had already mapped out what would happen in his career — before his first NHL game. Words such as “superstar” or even “future MVP” were thrown around during his rookie season.

When you face a previous phenom for the first time, the hockey world watches. Such is the case on Tuesday night, when the Chicago Blackhawks visit the Edmonton Oilers in what will be the first matchup between Bedard and McDavid (10 p.m. ET, ESPN).

McDavid said a player like Bedard has to “just tune out” the expectations placed on him.

“I’m sure he’s going to have to deal with that a little bit, but it seems like he really has a good head on his shoulders,” McDavid told ESPN. “You get used to it. There’s a lot of noise your rookie year. In your draft year, a lot of people are talking about you as you go through the whole process. It’s lots of interviews, lots of media, lots of attention and stuff like that. You finally get back to playing. That’s what you love to do and that’s what you’re good at.”

Declarations were already being made about Bedard by those around the league before he even played his first game. McDavid, a three-time Hart Trophy winner, was left impressed by Bedard’s maturity. Colorado Avalanche center and Stanley Cup winner Nathan MacKinnon said he was probably the best 18-year-old he’d ever skated with, and already had one of the best shots in the NHL.

“I’ve met him a few times. A super mature kid,” MacKinnon said. “Obviously, he has a good head on his shoulders. I know that’s pretty generic, but he does. He seems really mature. He’s really driven. He works super hard from what I can tell and I think he’s going to have a great year.”

Bedard is now nearly 30 games into his NHL career and has provided the sort of performances that justify why he’s been talked about for years. Already the Blackhawks top-line center, he leads them in goals, assists, points and ice time among forwards. The early favorite to win the Calder Trophy, he also leads this year’s rookie class in goals, assists and points.

He is projected to score 35 goals and finish with 66 points. If those projections hold, only Auston Matthews and Patrik Laine would have scored more goals in their rookie seasons over the past decade. The 66 points would be tied for the fourth most in a rookie season with Elias Pettersson. Mathew Barzal, Artemi Panarin and Matthews scored more.

Those are the short-term projections for Bedard. The long-term ones go beyond the stat sheet into the theoretical: Is he that good? Can he match the hype? Can he be the answer to his franchise’s revival and eventually lift the Stanley Cup?

These questions have been asked about other “generational talents” at the top of the draft, some of whom have experienced the same mania that’s followed Bedard into the NHL.

“Everyone has their own expectations coming in and obviously, like myself, mine was different with a guy like him,” New Jersey Devils center Jack Hughes said of Bedard. “Even Nico [Hischier]’s was different from mine and whatnot. Everyone has their own experience. I think he’s done a really good job so far.”

How has Bedard been able to handle the pressure of his rookie season? What are the realistic expectations for him as an NHL star?

Before projecting ahead, it’s best to understand the journeys of other recent franchise players.

THERE ARE TWO types of first picks in the NHL draft. There are the best players on the board, who could blossom into star players and help a team turn its fortunes around. Then there is that next class of prospects, who earn labels like “franchise savior” and “generational talent.”

Bedard falls squarely into that latter category, with recent No. 1 picks like McDavid, Matthews, Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin. The kind of rookie who immediately changes the course for a franchise.

Much like Bedard in Chicago, Ovechkin immediately changed the vibes in Washington for the 2005-06 season.

“When I first got there, you couldn’t give tickets away for the most part. As it went along, you could tell the crowds were getting bigger and the hype was growing,” said former Capitals winger Chris Clark, who is now director of player personnel for the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Bedard’s hype follows him on the road, where fans clamor to watch him. Clark remembers the same mania surrounding Ovechkin. “We’d go out west and be in warmups, and the whole building would be on one side of the ice to watch him,” he said.

This is where Clark sees the greatest comparison between Bedard and Ovechkin — the intense interest when a star rookie comes to town. “Every time he goes to a new city, it’s not just going to be the hockey writers covering him. It’s going to be the sportswriters and the entertainment people. More and more reporters — not just like the normal five hockey [writers] that are there every time,” Clark said. “It’s an event. Even if you don’t like hockey, you’ve heard of him. It’s an event.”

Ovechkin hit the ice after playing professionally in Russia, which was one reason his rookie season was so dominant. Auston Matthews had the same advantage, playing with the ZSC Lions in Switzerland the season before he joined the Toronto Maple Leafs.

“You heard all the hype for sure about him. It was a cool thing for him to have played in Switzerland for his draft year. Like, I can only imagine if he was playing in college or somewhere else, where you’d have to deal with a lot more of that extra noise,” said Boston Bruins forward James van Riemsdyk, who was with the Leafs when Matthews arrived. “I feel like it was also nice for him to challenge himself on the ice there, too. To work on his game where it was a little bit quieter, in a sense.”

It was never quiet for No. 1 picks like Crosby, McDavid and Bedard, who were garnering Canadian media coverage as young teenage players.

Edmonton Oilers star Leon Draisaitl said one of the reasons players such as Bedard and McDavid are able to handle such heavy expectations is the fact they have dealt with it long before they made it to the NHL.

“You just take it day by day. You stay in your little bubble and do what you do best and do what makes you feel comfortable,” Draisaitl said. “You find your pattern and you stick to that. You kind of block out all the expectations.”

Bedard’s first NHL game came against the Pittsburgh Penguins on opening night, where he assisted on a Ryan Donato goal for his first point. As phenom debuts went, it was solid and promising — even if it didn’t reach the level of Matthews’ historic first game, in which the Maple Leafs rookie set an NHL record with four goals.

“When you get four in the first game, I think the bar sort of changes a little bit,” van Riemsdyk said.

Hischier understands how hard it is to reach a bar set by other rookie phenoms, having gone No. 1 back in 2017 — which causes him to joke how he went first in the years after McDavid and Matthews.

“I had people asking me if I was going to score four goals in my first game,” Hischier said.

He was the first Swiss-born player to go No. 1 in the NHL draft. It was a landmark moment for a nation that’s still had fewer than 50 players reach the NHL. Hischier was even met with questions about if he could someday become the greatest Swiss hockey player of all time.

But even he admits, what Bedard is facing feels a bit more intense by comparison.

“I can’t even imagine what he is going through. … There is always going to be talk from people or on Twitter about you,” Hischier said. “I think it’s something that you have to try and just handle. Definitely not always easy. You will always get confronted with it even if you try to avoid it. But at the end of the day, we are professional athletes. Pressure can sometimes get to you and it happens to everyone. I think he’s doing pretty well and dealing with it the right way.”