NHL Winter Classic: Connor Bedard Handles Tough Season with Taylor Hall's Mentorship

When a player is hailed as "the next one" the way Chicago Blackhawks star Connor Bedard has been since he was drafted No. 1 overall in 2023, the hype and pressure that go with it are a lot to handle.

Now that the 19-year-old is in his second NHL season and his team is set to host the Winter Classic at Wrigley Field against the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday, a player hailed as a generational talent seems poised to shine on one of the biggest stages of his young career amid all of that hype and pressure.

Bedard is Chicago's leading point scorer this season with 32, and he's just behind Tyler Bertuzzi and Ryan Donato for the team lead in goals. A year ago, he was the Blackhawks' top scorer and tied with Jason Dickinson for most goals despite missing 14 games with a broken jaw.

Enjoying the Moment

It's a tough spot to be in on a team deep in the throes of a rebuild, especially when he's expected to drag Chicago back to the playoffs the way Connor McDavid and Sidney Crosby did for the Edmonton Oilers and Pittsburgh Penguins, respectively, so soon after entering the league.

With Chicago buried at the bottom of the Central Division holding the fewest points in the league and the lowest points percentage, it's safe to say everything is not going according to plan. Still, the NHL's annual outdoor extravaganza allows a moment to soak in the biggest game of his pro career.

"You have to do your best to enjoy it," Blackhawks forward Taylor Hall said. "It just means you're playing on a marquee franchise, and they want to put you on the main stage, and I think you should enjoy that."

The Winter Classic has provided a big stage for the likes of Crosby, Patrick Kane and Alex Ovechkin to showcase their abilities to the world. Bedard getting a chance at such an early stage sets up a career-building block moment for the, ideally, bigger games and moments to come.

For him, it's more about the team than anything else.

"We're lucky to get to play in one of these," Bedard said. "Obviously at home at Wrigley, it's going to be pretty special. I'm just excited to get to see what it's like, see the atmosphere, and just kind of enjoy it."

Winter Classics can be a bit overwhelming with the setting and the size of the crowd, and this taste of the event will be important for Bedard because it's surely not the last one he'll get to be a part of.

"It's kind of a chaotic time, but it's a lot of fun," Buffalo Sabres forward Jason Zucker said. "My first one was at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis (2016 Stadium Series) and the second one was at Fenway Park (2023 Winter Classic). You play at Fenway with the Green Monster behind you and it was pretty impressive. It was a heck of a lot of fun."

The difficulty of the season weighs on the players, especially one filled with turmoil for Chicago. Bedard has already been through a coach firing, seeing Luke Richardson fired this month.

Mentoring a Superstar

But if there's an upside to all this, it's that Bedard doesn't have to shoulder the weight of expectations without some guidance from someone who knows about it all too well in Hall.

The 33-year-old was the first player picked in the 2010 draft by the Oilers, and before the team had McDavid, Hall was the original guy with the weight of the world on his shoulders to get a once glorious franchise back on track.

If there's anyone Bedard can lean on for experience navigating these rough waters, he only has to look to his left wing to find it.

"I do enjoy the mentorship," Hall said. "I didn't get to be around Connor as much last year just being out, but this year we're starting to play on a line a bit more, so it's been fun. There's not a lot of people in the world that kind of know what you're going through and what comes with being a first overall pick and having a lot of hype, and in this day and age, it's all magnified with social media and TVs in your pocket all the time.

"But I do understand the pressure, and I do understand what it's like to go to a big market and have to perform."

Hall's NHL career has been truly incredible. He's gone from Edmonton to New Jersey—where he won MVP in 2018—to Arizona, Buffalo, Boston and now Chicago. Although Hall's teams have struggled to get to the playoffs, it helps serve as a lesson that getting to the top isn't easy, nor is it guaranteed, which makes it important to enjoy the big moments, like the Winter Classic, when they happen.

That said, Hall understands that things for Bedard are so much different now than they were for him.

"I think he's handled it great and I've really seen him just embrace it a little bit more this year rather than shy away from it last year," Hall said. "It's cool to be the face of a team and the face of a huge franchise like the Chicago Blackhawks.

"He's earned this, this is what he's worked for his whole life. He's starting to enjoy it and I've seen a lot more smiles, especially in the last couple of weeks. Development as an 18- or 19-year-old is never just a flat line. It's ups and downs and figuring out different things on the ice and off the ice."