What Nashville Predators are saying about Blackhawks phenom Connor Bedard as he hits town

A boy among men.

That's the first — and lasting — impression Chicago Blackhawks rookie Connor Bedard left on Nashville Predators forward Colton Sissons.

Sissons reached back three or four years for an example. He and Bedard did some skating together with other NHL players in their hometown of North Vancouver, British Columbia, long before Bedard was picked first overall by the Blackhawks in the 2023 NHL Draft in Nashville.

Bedard was 14 or 15 years old, said Sissons, who is 12 years his senior.

"He's playing with us, who are in our mid-20s," Sissons said Friday, a day before the Predators were to face Bedard for the first time. "He didn't just fit in; he was one of the better players on the ice, skill-wise, for sure."

Luke Evangelista on Connor Bedard: 'A generational talent'

Bedard has been a boy among men during the first 14 games of his NHL career, with his 15th coming at 1 p.m. Saturday in the arena where his NHL career officially began.

The 18-year-old has nine goals and four assists to lead all NHL rookies, and averages 19 minutes, 22 seconds of ice time per game, the most among rookie forwards.

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Predators forward Luke Evangelista, still technically a rookie himself and three years older than Bedard, once spent a weekend with him at a camp a couple of years ago.

He called Bedard "a generational talent."

"If I was skating with the average 14-year-old right now, they wouldn't stand out in a positive way," Evangelista said.

Like Bedard, Evangelista made his NHL debut against the Pittsburgh Penguins and another generational talent, Sidney Crosby.

"No weaknesses," Crosby said to NHL.com of skating with Bedard.

Dante Fabbro on Connor Bedard: 'You could tell how good he was'

Predators defenseman Dante Fabbro said he spent a couple of years skating with Bedard in Vancouver.

"You could just tell," Fabbro said. "You could just tell how good he was."

Bedard's play isn't the only thing that has impressed him. It's his ability to handle perhaps the most hype a player has ever had going into the NHL, a spotlight that began to shine before Bedard was a teenager.

"It might be a little too much sometimes," Fabbro said. "He's 18 years old. . . . A lot of it can be distracting and he's handled it well.

"I haven't seen behind the scenes but as an outsider looking in, he's done a pretty good job."

Connor Bedard on handling attention: 'It was gradual'

How has Bedard managed to turn that hype into hope for the Blackhawks?

Surprisingly, his brushes with attention have come at a steady pace.

"The biggest thing for me was it was pretty gradual," he said in June during NHL draft week. "It wasn't an overnight thing. That helps to kind of deal with things. It's gone up a bit this year with the draft."

Which was fine with Bedard, who pulls the positives from the sometimes-suffocating attention and expectations.

"I really enjoy things," he said. "These are little opportunities you want to have when you're a kid. I try to take every moment and not look past anything."

It's Bedard's aw-shucks response about the possibility of being picked first overall — "Nothing's happened yet. If they take me, that'd be unbelievable. We'll see what happens."

It's his humble-on-the-inside-but-ludicrous-on-the-outside stance during training camp — that he was hoping to make the team.

It's his "I hope to achieve" playing in the NHL responses.

All of it, part product of a polished persona, and part personality.

A boy among men.

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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville Predators go over impressions of Blackhawks' Connor Bedard