Pats’ Paddock is looking out for No. 1

For four months, Regina Pats general manager John Paddock has been keeping in touch with Connor Bedard and his family — just in case.

That communication is going to pay off now that the Pats have the No. 1 pick in the April 22 WHL bantam draft. Regina will be selecting Bedard, who is the first player ever in Western Canada to be granted exceptional player status.

“I met the family in November and saw them again in February and continued a lot of conversation since then – and knowing that this might not come to fruition because there was no guarantee that we were going to come out of the lottery with the pick,” Paddock told The Green Zone.

“It’s something that we’ve both been working at and getting to know each other for quite a while … We’ve had lots of communication. We all know where we wanted this to go.”

Bedard, a 14-year-old product of North Vancouver, B.C., was granted exceptional player status by Hockey Canada on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the Pats secured the No. 1 pick during the WHL’s bantam draft lottery.

Paddock knew precisely who he was going to take with it.

“(Bedard’s newly granted status) added to it, but for us, he was first overall regardless,” Paddock said. “He’s just a little bit above the next level of players in the draft – and they’re really good players.”

During the 2019-20 Canadian Sports School Hockey League season, Bedard had league-leading totals of 43 goals and 84 points in 36 games with West Vancouver Academy’s U18 team. He was named the 2020 CSSHL U18 Prep Division’s most valuable player.

He also was an MVP the season before, but in the CSSHL U15 Prep Division. In 30 games with West Vancouver Academy, he topped the league in goals (64) and points (88).

With his exceptional player tag, Bedard will be able to play a whole WHL season as a 15-year-old in 2020-21 instead of being limited to five games like other players his age. He’ll bring an impressive offensive resume to Regina to which the Pats will have to adapt.

“We have to have good players to play with him because they’re going to get passes that they need to be able to produce on, and they need to be able to get him the puck,” Paddock said. “I don’t think there’s a strength either way in his offensive ability. His shot is really high level, so his shot allows him to score …

“He’s different than Sammy (Steel, a former Pats star) was. Sammy couldn’t score from far out for his first couple of years, but we had trouble finding players who could convert the puck in open nets when they just weren’t ready for it because certain players make special plays.

“(Bedard) is going to make plays to set people up, but he’s going to make plays to score goals over his career here — a lot of them.”

Paddock compared the 5-foot-10, 165-pound Bedard to Steel and to former Seattle Thunderbirds standout Mathew Barzal, both of whom starred in the WHL before becoming first-round NHL draft picks.

Unlike those players, though, Bedard has exceptional player status — and Paddock knows that will follow the player and, to some degree, the Pats. As Paddock put it, dealing with that tag is “going to be new territory for anybody out here.”

“It’s not going to be difficult, I don’t think, but it’s going to have to be something that we are all aware of already,” Paddock said. “We’ll have to watch out for him at times … so it’s not overdone.

“He’s a young kid who’s going to be going to school and he’s going to be playing hockey and those are the first two things that are most important. But we know there’s attention (that’s) going to come to him and attention (that’s going to) come to us for sure.”

Paddock said the talent level for the WHL draft is deep and suggested a number of Saskatchewan players could be selected very early in the first round.

But the Pats will get what they hope is a generational talent at No. 1 as they try to continue a rebuilding process after falling into the bottom third of the league’s overall standings in the 2019-20 campaign.

“(Selecting Bedard) is going to speed (the rebuild) up, but the players who are going to be taken after him are really good players,” Paddock said. “They would have been a big part of our rebuild as well.”