Bedard doesn’t want to leave the ice. It is mainly done by power players, the young man defends himself

Seth Jones complained over the weekend that Chicago’s rotations are too long this season. If you look at specific numbers, the one who stays on the ice the most is Connor Bedard.

Inexperience? Caution? Running off the ice?

Don’t go to Bedard with that. Entering Thursday, the Chicago youngster is tied for sixth in the entire NHL in innings. Behind Kaprizov (1:07), Boldy (1:02), Zuccarello (1:02) — all Minnesota players, by the way — Bedard has the fourth-longest streak among league hitters.

On average, they spend exactly one minute on the ice. However, other Hawks players like to extend the substitution – Taylor Hall 0:56, Philipp Kurashev 0:55, Ryan Donato 0:55, Seth Jones 0:58.

The 18-year-old attacker himself has an evasive answer to the matter: “Some of it is power plays. I’m not saying that I shouldn’t shorten it, but it’s an important factor,” he explained the long stay on the ice.

All the biggest stars spend a lot of time on power plays, but for example Connor McDavid (0:57) and Alexandr Ovechkin (0:58) have substitutions under a minute. Albeit very closely.

The truth is that Bedard sometimes doesn’t get off the power play for two whole minutes. After all, most underutilized forwards in the NHL will play a lot of minutes on the power play. The question is, is it good or bad for such a young player – he just turned 18 in July?

When playing five-on-five with Bedard on the ice, Chicago generates 0.48 chances per minute, 0.39 without him. At a young age, he understandably shows no signs of fatigue or wear. In addition, when the entire five spends the rotation stuck in the offensive zone, no coach probably doesn’t mind if he wants to finish the action and score. When the band loses and the players still don’t aim to rotate, it’s a different song.

Some might have expected more, but Badard is satisfying the fans so far. His five goals in the first eleven games is a good start. Neither Patrick Kane nor Jonathan Toews gave more to start their careers. However, the results of the team will also be important. Chicago is still third from last in the Western half of the league.

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