It's a jaded statistic, but it's still appalling.
Connor Bedard leads all NHL players in percentage of goals scored for a player's respective team, according to Sportsnet Stats. He has 26.5% of all of the Blackhawks' goals this season.
It's a loaded statistic because the Blackhawks don't have another scorer who can live up to Bedard's volume. That's evident. Other teams --- the Maple Leafs, for example --- have Williams Nylander taking goals from Auston Matthews. The Canucks have J.T. Miller taking goals away from the NHL's goal-scoring leader: Brock Boeser.
Either way, for an 18-year-old rookie, we opt to believe Bedard's performance thus far has been nothing less than elite.
On the season, Bedard has nine goals and four assists, giving him an impressive 13 points. For what it's worth, those points were scored through a gauntlet schedule against some of the NHL's best teams.
Going into their last game on Tuesday, the combined record of the 10 teams they've faced this season through 13 games is 83-45-14. The combined goal differential of those teams is +61.
Chicago Blackhawks
The Blackhawks have placed Boston twice, a team that won the Presidents' Trophy last season. They've played the defending Stanley Cup Champion Las Vegas Golden Knights. They've also played Colorado, which won the Stanley Cup two years ago, and Tampa Bay, which won consecutive titles in 2020 and 2021.
And then there's Florida, which was the Eastern Conference champion last season, and New Jersey, which had the third-most points in the NHL a year ago. Not to mention Toronto, which has the fourth-most regular-season points since 2020.
Feeling out of the loop? We'll catch you up on the Chicago news you need to know. Sign up for the weekly Chicago Catch-Up newsletter here.
But, Bedard & Co. have stuck through it all, holding their own for the most part. Their early-season games and performances have caught the eyes of hockey's greats, including Wayne Gretzky, who made a bold statement about Bedard's play through the early portion of the season.
"With young players, one of the hard things is you always tell them, 'You got to shoot the puck, you got to shoot more,'" he said. "Young guys don't want to be called selfish on the hockey club. You want to show your teammates, 'Look, I'm not a selfish player.' And he's not a selfish player. He sees the open man, but he doesn't hesitate to shoot the puck. I think he stepped in nicely, and he's been everything that everybody thought he was going to be.
"And he might even be better than we thought."
