First and foremost
Winning the right to pick Bedard at No. 1 ‘can change a franchise’
Lightning struck twice.
When the lottery balls settled Monday for the NHL draft’s first draw, the Blackhawks were the big winners — securing the No. 1 pick for just the second time in franchise history.
Both instances of lottery luck are equally momentous.
In 2007 the Hawks won the lottery despite the fifth-best odds and spent the No. 1 pick on Patrick Kane, winner of three Stanley Cups in Chicago.
This year the clear-cut prize is 17-year-old forward Connor Bedard, who had a whopping 143 points (71 goals and 72 assists) in 57 games last season for the Regina Pats of the Western Hockey League.
Asked whether Bedard is a lock for the top pick, Hawks general manager Kyle Davidson flashed a sly smile and said: “Great player. One of many in this draft.”
The Hawks had an 11.5% probability of earning first dibs after finishing with the league’s thirdworst record.
“To see the excitement when I walked back into that (draft) room was pretty special,” Davidson said. “It’s a pretty invigorated staff right now. I think it’ll be a very excited fan base, what the possibilities are here.
“It doesn’t change the fact that we have to build a team, and (when) you look back at any Stanley Cup team, they have great players ... it’s not just one person. You need many great pieces and many important pieces and players who jell together and can play within the team concept.”
In his head, Davidson had resigned himself to the worst-case scenario.
“I’ve been, for weeks now, just mentally preparing for (pick No.) 4 or 5 because that’s what the odds sort of said were going to happen,” he said. As the draft order unfolded, “you’re just waiting and there’s nothing you can do, nothing you control.
“I’ve memorized the order by now from the lowest odds to all the way up to Anaheim, so I knew the teams that had to come off the board and just went off in unison until the third overall pick there, and I was just happy that we got that far.”
Then, in a live-TV gaffe for the ages, ESPN analyst Kevin Weekes prematurely revealed that the second-slotted Columbus Blue Jackets had fallen to the third pick.
“There’s our first change in the order with Columbus dropping to third,” Weekes said during the broadcast. “Either Anaheim or Chicago will select first overall.”
Big problem: The show was going into a commercial break, and NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly hadn’t yet revealed the order of the top three.
It was portentous for the Hawks, however. Daly flipped the card for the No. 1 pick and showed the Hawks logo.
“I think I just said, ‘Wow,’ ” Davidson said. “You understand the impact that a first overall pick can have and having the first overall pick in the right year. Hopefully that’s what we’ve got here, and it can change a franchise, it can change a city and it can change an era in a team’s history.
“So, there’s a lot of weight and significance to that. When that No. 1 card flipped over and it was our logo, it hits you all at once because you think about it in the lead-up and you think about what could be and you don’t let yourself go there that often because chances were we weren’t going to see that come to fruition.”
The Ducks had an 18.5% chance of winning the first draw and a 25.5% chance of landing the first pick because teams could move up only 10 spots, ruling out slots 12 through 16.
If the Hawks take Bedard as expected, the Ducks are a good bet to select University of Michigan forward Adam Fantilli.
The run-up to the June 28 draft in Nashville, Tennessee, will center on a Big Four of Bedard, Fantilli, Matvei Michkov and Leo Carlsson. But Hawks director of amateur scouting Mike Doneghey said Bedard is in a tier by himself.
Despite coming into the season as the consensus No. 1 pick, “he never took the foot off the gas to relinquish that,” Doneghey told the Tribune last week. “Connor kind of just went about his business all year long and just continued to improve.
“And just when people were like, ‘OK, he can’t do anymore,’ he said, ‘Hold on a second, I got a lot more in the tank.’ He was on a steady climb all year long.”
However, Doneghey cautioned against anointing Bedard as hockey’s next Chosen One too soon. He turns 18 in July.
“Even if Bedard plays in the league next year, he’s an 18-year-old playing among men,” Doneghey said. “There’s still going to be a learning curve.”
The Hawks have a second firstround pick, acquired in a trade last season with the Tampa Bay Lightning. That slot is likely to be No. 20. They also have four picks in the second round and 11 overall.
“It’s a great opportunity,” Davidson said. “I said it to the staff right after we found out we had the No. 1 pick: We acquired all these assets and these draft pieces because we couldn’t rely on the odds, so we had to stack the odds in other areas in terms of volume.
“Having said that, now that we have the first overall pick, maybe that gives you more options to use some of those draft assets to move up, use whatever is available at your disposal to enhance what you already have. It’s just options, and this gives us more options. We’re going to explore them and we’ll see. …. We need a lot of players, so hopefully we can find some of those in this draft.”