from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

There are always Next Ones coming who salivate the imagination — the way there was Eric Lindros, Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid and Jack Hughes, and the way there is Connor Bedard.

Bedard put on a show for victorious Team Canada in the World Juniors and capped it with an on-ice interview following his team’s 3-2 overtime victory over Team Czechia in Halifax that made this 17-year-old (!) poster boy for the sport’s evolving speed and skill also a virtual poster boy for our game’s credo that the logo on the front of the sweater is more important than the name on its back.

“I don’t want to talk about myself right now,” said Bedard, who was named MVP of the tourney after recording nine goals, 14 assists and 23 points to lead the event in each category. “We’re not talking about me.

“We just won the biggest tournament in the world, and man, I love this team, this country.”

Bedard is another of the influx of electrifying young athletes who, one-by-one and year-by-year, are transforming the sport. Coaching matters, of course it does, and so does discipline and so does the ability to get the puck in and get the puck out, but the NHL is a players league and it becomes more of one with each season.

These young whippersnappers are too self-assured and too talented to be shoehorned into left wing locks and traps. They are too rambunctious and cocky to believe that a three-goal lead is too much to overcome.

Outdoor games and shinny have come to the NHL.

read on plus more topics of interest...