Connor Bedard, Brock Faber matchup fails to add excitement to another Blackhawks loss

The Minnesota Wild continued their dominance of the Chicago Blackhawks with a 4-0 win to sweep the season series and extend their winning streak over them to 12 games. However, the focus was on the second and final head-to-head meeting between the two favorites for the Calder Trophy, Blackhawks forward Connor Bedard and Wild defenseman Brock Faber. Bedard missed the Feb. 7 meeting as he recovered from a broken jaw.

Despite missing 14 games with said jaw injury, Bedard led all rookies with 22 goals, 37 assists, and 59 points heading into today’s game. Faber was tied with New Jersey Devils’ blueliner Luke Hughes for rookie assists with 35. Hughes passed Faber for second in rookie scoring with two more goals.

While Bedard is the clear-cut favorite to win the NHL’s Rookie of the Year honors, a small segment of writers and fans insist that Faber has had a better season. They keep referring to his plus-1 rating and 25:01 average time on ice (TOI). However, since Jan. 1, Faber is a -10 as the Wild fell out of playoff contention. Being plus-1 on a team with a minus-13 goal differential on the season is good. One could argue that Alex Vlasic being a minus-4 on a team with a minus-95 goal differential is more impressive. For the record, Vlasic is not eligible for the Calder Trophy, as he played one too many games before this season started.

Let’s put some context to the +/- “debate.” Faber has been on the ice for 61 5v5 goals against this season. Bedard has been on the ice for 62 goals against and only one more goal against. The most significant difference is Faber has been on the ice 61 goals for, while Bedard has been on the ice for 36, 33 of which he has either scored himself or had an assist on. In summary, having better players around you helps your +/- stats.

“He’s not the biggest guy, but he’s tenacious out there,” Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson said of Faber. He battles hard. I’m not sure if we had a guy like that on our team where he fits in on your depth chart, but on their depth chart, it looks like he’s at the top. For a first-year defenseman, that’s really hard to do.”

Bedard has performed quite well with very little talent around him. He is the first rookie to earn the NHL honor three times in a season since Connor McDavid did it in the 2015-16 season.

“His production offensively is great,” Richardson said. “Now that you’re adding better and more conscious responsibility away from the puck, I think that shows a lot of maturity in a young player, and when you have the point production still coming when you’re doing that, that’s a sign of a real solid player that’s going to be here for a long time doing this.”

As one would predict, Wild head coach John Hynes tried to get Faber out there against the Bedard line as much as he could. For the most part, it worked, as Bedard was stifled for much of the game. The Blackhawks’ rookie phenom was held to just one shot on goal on three shot attempts in 18:24 of time on ice. Minnesota did a great job shutting down Bedard and the entire Blackhawks offense.

Faber picked up his 36th assist of the season on Kirill Kaprizov’s second goal of the day.

Just @Brockfaber14 doing Brock Faber things. 😍 pic.twitter.com/lqEQzr4oTA

— NHL (@NHL) April 7, 2024

The helper brought him up to a plus-2 on the season, for those who still think that’s the stat that makes the difference in the Calder race. Nobody is trying to discredit Faber’s excellent rookie season. But, to say he’s had a better season than Bedard because of graphs and charts is a significant disservice and doesn’t make you look as smart as you think it does.

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