The Athletic has live coverage of NHL Draft 2023
Life came at Alexandre Daigle fast.
Maybe too fast, in retrospect.
The first pick in the 1993 NHL Draft was as highly-touted a prospect as they come, and he knew it too, famously saying, “I’m glad I got drafted first because no one remembers number two.”
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He drew sizeable crowds in Ottawa during public appearances as he immediately became the player the Senators hoped would turn their franchise around after what remains one of the worst seasons in modern NHL history.
Less than five years after draft day and with just one playoff appearance, Daigle was traded out of Ottawa, having failed to live up to the unattainable hype. Daigle can see now that as the face of the franchise at just 18 coming out of the QMJHL, he was in over his head.
“It’s very tough mentally to deal with (being the face of the franchise) because you’re used to winning pretty much all the time, you’re always on the winning teams and with that kind of talent, you can carry your team,” Daigle told The Athletic. “But one guy carrying an NHL team, that’s very tough. It takes a lot of guys to (succeed in the NHL).”
Now 30 years after Daigle’s name was called, Connor Bedard, another generational prospect, will be selected first. And after he’s picked, he’ll also be expected to dramatically alter the future of the floundering Chicago Blackhawks. No small task for a teenager.
It’s also no small task to manage sky-high expectations, as many players have learned.
Rasmus Dahlin immediately knew his answer to the question. So much so that he cut the question off before it was finished.
“Do fans and the media forget how young first overall picks are when they play their rookie season?”
“Yeah!” the 2018 first pick said emphatically, his eyes widening. “It’s crazy. All the fans expect you to score 100 points the first year and change the whole organization as an 18-year-old. It doesn’t work like that.”
Dahlin stretches his hand out as he tries to pick from multiple examples of top picks who entered the league with promise and took time to develop. Perhaps he could have chosen Alexis Lafrenière (2020), who after three seasons with the New York Rangers, has failed to pass the 40-point mark.
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Or he could have picked Nico Hischier (2017), who, despite having a strong two-way game, cracked the 30-goal mark for the first time in his sixth NHL season.
“It’s not always easy. Definitely not,” Hischier said of his transition to the NHL. “People have to understand that you’re a teenager coming into a league. It’s men’s hockey. You’re still developing as a player. There’s a lot on you.”
But the name Dahlin settles on is 2019 first pick Jack Hughes, who didn’t exactly light the world on fire through his first two shortened NHL seasons.
“Everyone was talking about him like he wasn’t it,” Dahlin said.
But this past season, Hughes notched 43 goals, looking like one of the better centers in the NHL.
Dahlin’s emphatic answer serves as a reminder that, no matter how much steam the Bedard hype train gains leading up to the draft, tempering expectations about what he can achieve on the ice might not just be beneficial for fans; it also might benefit Bedard himself. Because from Dahlin’s perspective, there is enough for players to deal with as they make the jump to the NHL.
Now, Dahlin was able to have a soft landing in the NHL. The defenseman was drafted out of Frolunda in the Swedish Hockey League, where he was already playing against grown men.
But Bedard is coming off playing with 16-year-old teammates on the WHL’s Regina Pats. As talented as he is and as close to a generational player as he might end up becoming, the gulf between the WHL — or any other league — and the NHL could feel massive early on.
Dahlin remembers trying to stretch over that gulf in his rookie season. The development path for a defenseman may be longer than a forward, but the wake-up calls in the NHL still come hard and fast in a rookie season.
“It’s not easy when (Connor) McDavid is coming towards you at 18,” Dahlin said with a smile.
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At 18, it’s not uncommon for players to still be growing into their frame. Bedard isn’t slight by any means, but his body will likely be subject to the kind of physicality he wasn’t used to in junior. As he learns to manage that physicality, Dahlin, for one, will continue to be adamant: If fans want to truly appreciate Bedard, or any first pick for that matter, they’d be wise to temper their expectations off the hop.
And few understand that like Dahlin himself: After a successful enough rookie season in which he played in all 82 NHL games and put up 44 points, his production dipped in his next two seasons. Dahlin has since emerged as one of the pre-eminent NHL defensemen, being named to the last two All-Star Games. It might have taken five seasons, but Dahlin believes if highly-touted picks don’t have to read or hear about added pressure from fans on social media, they’ll become more comfortable in their own skin far quicker.
“From my perspective, fans can sometimes chill for a second and remember these guys are 18. Pressure is not going to help,” Dahlin said. “They will become the player they’re supposed to (be), but just give them time.”
Hischier knew when his life in the NHL as one of the faces of a rebuilding Devils team was different than his peers.
It came just four days into his first NHL season.
“The first time I went to Canada,” he said with a grin.
At Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Hischier was held pointless in his third NHL game and first in Canada, but that’s not what he remembers. It was the dozens of reporters and camera people crowding into the visitors’ locker room, bringing the kind of attention Hischier had only heard stories about. He was immediately asked how he compared to top picks before him like Auston Matthews, who scored 40 goals in his rookie season, and admitted feats like that were a “hard act to follow.”
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That’s when Hischier realized he needed to start leaning on new people to help him navigate his new life. That meant leaning on then 22-year-old fellow Swiss-born Mirco Mueller. Mueller taught him about traveling in the NHL, what to say and not to say with the cameras on and gave him the kind of honest advice about his game that separated Mueller from the multitude of voices coming from outside his locker room.
“For me, the only opinion (that mattered) were the ones in the locker room,” Hischier said.
And so for Bedard to manage the expectations that come of him, he would do well to find voices inside the Blackhawks room who can help him avoid becoming overwhelmed by his new life. The Blackhawks roster as it stands is sparse, sure. But Tyler Johnson stands out as a mentor to consider.
Because Bedard could likely use someone who can help him adjust to his new life off the ice. The paycheques will be much, much larger. The demands on Bedard’s time will increase rapidly, be it through team or sponsor-driven engagements. And with it all will come the weight of pressure and expectations not just to produce, but to be the unequivocal new face of a franchise.
As one former face of a franchise attests, having more voices around him might have changed his early career.
Daigle wishes to this day that he had “more support” in his rookie season. The expectations to turn a team around that had just 24 points in 1992-93 had grown exponentially with Daigle.
He remembers not having enough people to talk to about the pressures he was facing.
“You get those sports psychologists now that travel with players. That for me, would have helped,” Daigle said.
And looking back, it wasn’t uncommon for Daigle to feel as if he didn’t have a grip on his new life.
“You don’t have that life experience,” Daigle said. “There’s a lot of tools that you’re going to acquire through your career and through your life and that’s normal.”
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Daigle is right, the life Bedard is about to embark on is far from normal.
“People can put too much pressure on kids,” 2021 first pick Owen Power said, before qualifying his sentiment. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing to have all the hype.”
That’s because Power believes more of a “sink or swim” mentality could help Bedard.
“You need to get thrown into the fire and just experience it for yourself. Make mistakes and enjoy the process,” Power said.
Now, Power had the benefit of returning to the University of Michigan for one season after being drafted to develop more emotional maturity. But with that maturity came an understanding that helped him through an impressive rookie season that saw him named as a Calder Trophy finalist.
“People have got to realize that they are kids but players have got to realize (hockey) is now their job,” he said.
Starting with the moment he steps onstage to shake Gary Bettman’s hand as the new face of the Blackhawks, Bedard will try to ensure his career takes a different path than the player who stepped onstage 30 years earlier.
Both players are being touted as franchise-altering picks. Both players come into the league with incredible skill displayed in junior hockey. Both players are coming into legitimate hockey markets on teams that are coming off ugly seasons.
But Bedard has an opportunity to carve out a career for himself much longer than Daigle’s, and to learn from his predecessors.
“Playing in front of 20,000 people every night, having those reporters in front of you, having to answer those questions, it’s not like they teach you that at school,” Daigle said. “You’ve got to learn it right there. There was no blueprint.”
(Top photos: John Giamundo, Bruce Bennett, Ron Jenkins / Getty Images)
