Yup, the first pick in the 2023 draft is slumping & the media's reflexive response is to deem him over-rated, all hype, a bust. You think scribes learn from past mistakes? Good luck with that.
Too bad Erin Hicks didn’t get you to write her stuff, maybe I would remember who she was and why she got to give her opinion on Crosby ahead of the Bard !
Thanks for the interesting piece on Bedard. You are certainly right that many in the media engage in the trafficking of "hot takes" and burying hyped young stars in their fertile “bust” fields, well-watered by their hate pieces. Yet, two things can be true at the same time. Sure, some in the press will push anti-Bedard narratives for sport, but where your piece falls short for me is the failure to acknowledge the objective reality of what's happening in front of us...
...Bedard is really struggling.
It's important to recall what we were told last season for comparison - we were instructed by the hockey intelligentsia that he was a lock to be a 100+ point player as a rookie and immediately establish himself as a rare generational talent. That didn't happen. Then, the pro-Bedard press dug their trench deeper - he would in fact be that generational player in a huge rebound year this season they assured us.
Except, that hasn't happened now either. The result is anger and a healthy dose of deflection towards those who criticize him. Yet, the fact remains that as Bedard approaches 100 games, he's trending as just a good player who has regressed somewhat this season.
Getting to acceptance is a long and hard road these argumentative days, and the detours before we get there are all too familiar. First, are the unwarranted extrapolations to outlier use cases... like Crosby. The problem is that you don't form good opinions or take serious action on historic outliers - on what "could" happen - you make them on what is "likely" to happen given the present reality.
You don't buy a used Fiat because your college roommate had a decent experience years back and believe it won’t break down on your trip across the country. You don’t send your kids to the worst schools in town because a decade ago some kid who graduated there went to an elite university.
And you don't pretend what you see on the ice from Bedard isn't worrisome. No, you look at the data and play the smart odds as to the likely future state.
There is freedom in acknowledging and embracing what the current reality is. Bedard just doesn't look like the player we thought he was. He might in the future, but not now. He's different than Crosby whose first two season numbers were much better.
It's OK to honestly acknowledge where Bedard is at now...truth has a redemptive quality over just throwing out another argument in the hope that you’ll eventually be proven right. More importantly, acknowledging what the current reality is instead of insisting what it should be leads to the question that you really ought to be asking here:
Why is he struggling?
"Why" is a powerful question. It leads you down roads you never take, roads you always avoid. It takes you to places that you didn't even know existed. It's the path to getting closer to truth.
I don't know exactly why Bedard is struggling, but I know that making that inquiry is exponentially more productive for everyone than settling old scores. I will note as an ice breaker that Bedard was on pace to have a very good rookie season before his jaw injury... then he experienced a precipitous decline. That decline has increased a bit this season. Has the injury thrown him off as it appears it might have? I don't know, but I do know one thing.
There are a lot more cases of injured hockey players not coming back the same as there are of players suddenly becoming Sidney Crosby out of nowhere. Thanks again.
What I would say is there were plenty of accusations of over-hyping when I wrote about Nathan MacKinnon when he was at Shattuck — hfboards, a hockey chat room back in 2009 carved me into little pieces pointing out he didn’t even lead Shattuck in scoring. Another kid did—where is Taylor Cammarata these days?
Too bad Erin Hicks didn’t get you to write her stuff, maybe I would remember who she was and why she got to give her opinion on Crosby ahead of the Bard !
Thanks for the interesting piece on Bedard. You are certainly right that many in the media engage in the trafficking of "hot takes" and burying hyped young stars in their fertile “bust” fields, well-watered by their hate pieces. Yet, two things can be true at the same time. Sure, some in the press will push anti-Bedard narratives for sport, but where your piece falls short for me is the failure to acknowledge the objective reality of what's happening in front of us...
...Bedard is really struggling.
It's important to recall what we were told last season for comparison - we were instructed by the hockey intelligentsia that he was a lock to be a 100+ point player as a rookie and immediately establish himself as a rare generational talent. That didn't happen. Then, the pro-Bedard press dug their trench deeper - he would in fact be that generational player in a huge rebound year this season they assured us.
Except, that hasn't happened now either. The result is anger and a healthy dose of deflection towards those who criticize him. Yet, the fact remains that as Bedard approaches 100 games, he's trending as just a good player who has regressed somewhat this season.
Getting to acceptance is a long and hard road these argumentative days, and the detours before we get there are all too familiar. First, are the unwarranted extrapolations to outlier use cases... like Crosby. The problem is that you don't form good opinions or take serious action on historic outliers - on what "could" happen - you make them on what is "likely" to happen given the present reality.
You don't buy a used Fiat because your college roommate had a decent experience years back and believe it won’t break down on your trip across the country. You don’t send your kids to the worst schools in town because a decade ago some kid who graduated there went to an elite university.
And you don't pretend what you see on the ice from Bedard isn't worrisome. No, you look at the data and play the smart odds as to the likely future state.
There is freedom in acknowledging and embracing what the current reality is. Bedard just doesn't look like the player we thought he was. He might in the future, but not now. He's different than Crosby whose first two season numbers were much better.
It's OK to honestly acknowledge where Bedard is at now...truth has a redemptive quality over just throwing out another argument in the hope that you’ll eventually be proven right. More importantly, acknowledging what the current reality is instead of insisting what it should be leads to the question that you really ought to be asking here:
Why is he struggling?
"Why" is a powerful question. It leads you down roads you never take, roads you always avoid. It takes you to places that you didn't even know existed. It's the path to getting closer to truth.
I don't know exactly why Bedard is struggling, but I know that making that inquiry is exponentially more productive for everyone than settling old scores. I will note as an ice breaker that Bedard was on pace to have a very good rookie season before his jaw injury... then he experienced a precipitous decline. That decline has increased a bit this season. Has the injury thrown him off as it appears it might have? I don't know, but I do know one thing.
There are a lot more cases of injured hockey players not coming back the same as there are of players suddenly becoming Sidney Crosby out of nowhere. Thanks again.
We’ll see how this ages. And I don’t need to try to settle scores—on this one Sid did all the work.
What I would say is there were plenty of accusations of over-hyping when I wrote about Nathan MacKinnon when he was at Shattuck — hfboards, a hockey chat room back in 2009 carved me into little pieces pointing out he didn’t even lead Shattuck in scoring. Another kid did—where is Taylor Cammarata these days?