During a break in practice last fall, Blackhawks assistant coach Derek King was sliding pucks off the back of Connor Bedard's skates. Bedard was directing the pucks to the backhand side of his right-handed Sherwood Rekker stick. It was a slowed-down slice of a less-than-perfect pass in a game. Just the sort of thing Bedard tinkers with all the time, especially before and after team drills and sessions when the NHL's No. 1 rink rat lingers on the ice. Connor Bedard is always cooking up something for the ice. [https://thehockeynews.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MjA0NDcyODQ5MDg2MjkzNzky/usatsi_22565588_168401008_lowres.jpg] Connor Bedard is always cooking up something for the ice. He's not just killing time. The Calder Trophy finalist is pretty much all hockey, all the time. If the 18-year-old Bedard seems a bit obsessive, that's usually OK with his coaches and teammates. Bedard constantly works on subtle, even tiny plays and moves he hopes to naturally incorporate in game situations. It's like training muscles to perform automatically and without thinking in competition. For instance, just about any athlete might train their abs and other core muscles to kick in when running, cycling, skiing, climbing and, of course, skating. Bedard never seems to tire of it. The NHL's leading rookie scorer of 2023-24 was even doing it in one of the Blackhawks' final practices in April. He'll no doubt continue all summer back home in the Vancouver area when he's on the ice with his "hockey homies." "I was out on the ice before practice and he three pucks just in front of the crease," Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said after one of Chicago's last home practices of the season at the Fifth Third Arena. "He'd get them and try to make a quick move and stuff it in, either high or low and he's in those situations a lot. So he want to be ready for them and repetition is the only way to be ready for them. "It think it's good to practice them," Richardson added. "While there's a 5-on-5 drill going on in practice, sometimes you have to do something before or after that just to fine tune it, get that muscle coordination going in your hands and your eyes connecting them. He tries to cover all those bases." See Richardson in the following video. Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson talks about Connor Bedard's quirky little practice "extras" on the ice. Sometimes the payoff seems subtle, but it could impact the scoresheet. Even Bedard's lacrosse-style or "Michigan" goal on Dec. 23 at St. Louis might have resulted from his preparation as much as offensive instinct. On the play, he lifted the puck on the backhand side of his stick blade, circled the net and tucked it in over the shoulder of Blues goalie Jordan Binnington. Binnington and Bedard ended up being teammates for Canada at the 2024 IIHF World Championships in Czechia. Although Bedard's production and ice time dwindled at the World's after a fast start, his Team Canada mates noticed his habits. "He's just a pro," said Tampa Bay Lightning forward Nick Paul."You see him on the ice and see how good he is and it just makes sense when you see him off the ice." Bedard's certainly not the first NHLer to do this sort of thing. Richardson recalled that in his first assistant coaching job, with the Ottawa Senators, he'd feed 20-year NHL defenseman and power-play specialist Sergei Gonchar dozens of pucks a day to practice one-timers. That's a little more demonstrative than what Bedard does, but the concept is the same. "He'd come out before practice and probably shoot 100 pucks on each side," Richardson said. "He did it every day and he probably was 36 at the time. That was his routine because he wanted to be ready for that once chance in a game."
