Chicago Blackhawks Win NHL’s 2023 Draft Lottery, 1st Crack At Connor Bedard

As their franchise transitions to its next generation, the Chicago Blackhawks will have a chance to draft a new generational player.

A win at Monday’s draft lottery moves the Blackhawks up two places in the order at the 2023 NHL Draft, which will be held June 28-29 in Nashville.

With that first overall pick, Chicago will be expected to select Connor Bedard, the 17-year-old phenom from the Regina Pats of the Western Hockey League who has been the undisputed top prospect across scouts’ 2023 draft boards for at least the last two years.

For the Blackhawks, the timing couldn’t be better. The opportunity to draft Bedard comes right as they’ve come to the end of the road with the leaders of their last generation of stars. Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane will both become unrestricted free agents this summer after playing out matching eight-year contracts.

Kane was selected first overall in the Blackhawks’ only other draft-lottery win for first overall in 2007, after Toews was selected with the third pick in 2006. Together, the pair formed the nucleus of a roster that won three Stanley Cups in six years, in 2010, 2013 and 2015.

In 2021, the Blackhawks organization was rocked by scandal, when it was revealed that the organization had acted inappropriately in 2010 when faced with sexual misconduct allegations toward the team’s video coach, Bradley Aldrich, by 2008 11th-overall pick Kyle Beach.

In the wake of an independent investigation in 2021, general manager Stan Bowman and other executives left the team, and former head coach Joel Quenneville also left his position with the Florida Panthers as a result of his role with the Blackhawks at the time of the incident.

This spring, both Bowman and Quenneville’s names have been mentioned as potential candidates for open positions elsewhere in the league. But neither man can return to an NHL job before being cleared by league commissioner Gary Bettman. So far, that hasn’t happened.

On the ice, the Blackhawks’ fortunes had been in decline every since the 2015 Stanley Cup win, with key players getting older and salary-cap decisions forcing the kind of tough roster decisions that we’ve also seen with other teams, most notably the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The housecleaning which followed the investigation into the Kyle Beach situation saw Kyle Davidson promoted into the general manager’s chair, where he immediately pushed his team into full rebuild mode.

That translated into a 27th-place finish in the standings in the 2021-22 season, and included a roster sell-off which led to 11 picks in the 2022 draft, including three first-rounders.

As franchise icons who hoped to play their entire careers in Chicago, Kane and Toews were not pleased to suddenly find themselves in a rebuild situation. But Davidson pressed on, undeterred. Eventually accepting his circumstances, impending free agent Kane accepted a trade-deadline move to the New York Rangers on Feb. 28. Dealing with injuries and health issues, Toews came back for a brief season-ending swan song. He has also been told that the Blackhawks won’t be offering him a new contract.

Instead, it appears that the reins will be handed to Bedard as early as this fall. Since 2007, every first-0verall pick has made an immediate jump into the NHL expect for defenseman Owen Power. In 2021, he opted to return for a sophomore season at the University of Michigan after his freshman-year experienced had been dramatically disrupted by pandemic-related restrictions.

A high-scoring center who already has an NHL-caliber shot, Bedard is a bit undersized for the NHL at 5’10” and 185 pounds. But he can take care of himself. He’s highly competitive and has stood up for himself for his entire hockey career.

He’ll also be coming into the Blackhawks organization with three other high-end prospects from the WHL’s Seattle Thunderbirds who were all teammates on Canada’s run to gold at the 2023 World Junior Championship — defensemen Nolan Allan (32nd overall in 2021) and Kevin Korchinski (seventh overall in 2022) and forward Colton Dach (62nd overall in 2021).

The Blackhawks currently have 11 picks in the 2023 draft as well, including a second first-round pick which orginally belonged to the Lightning. With 59 points in 82 games this season, Chicago finished 30th overall, tied with the 31st-place Columbus Blue Jackets and one point ahead of the last-place Anaheim Ducks.

The Blackhawks made good on an 11.5% chance of winning the first draft lottery drawing and the opportunity to select first overall. The Ducks won the second drawing and moved down one spot, to No. 2. Anaheim has never had a first-overall pick in its franchise history.

Chicago’s win also bumped the Blue Jackets down to the No. 3 spot. Columbus has also never had a draft-lottery win, but did draft Rick Nash first overall after acquiring the pick from the Florida Panthers in 2002.

The rest of the draft order remains unchanged by the lottery. The only other note is that, because they did not move into the top five, the Ottawa Senators’ 12th-overall pick now transfers to the Arizona Coyotes as part of the conditions of Ottawa’s trade acquisition of Jakob Chychrun.

This year’s draft will be part of a week-long series of events in Nashville. That kicks off with the 2023 NHL Awards on Monday, June 26.