Gavin McKenna turned to Blackhawks' Connor Bedard for advice and it's turning heads
The 2026 draft is still weeks away, and Gavin McKenna is already leaning on the most relevant source he has.
McKenna is widely projected as a top candidate to go first overall this year.
He revealed today he reached out to distant cousin Connor Bedard earlier this year for advice on handling the pressure of a possible number-one selection.
"He's always a brain I like to go to," McKenna said in a post shared by Chicago Sun-Times reporter Ben Pope.
Nobody in hockey has lived that specific experience more recently than Bedard, who went first overall to Chicago in 2023.
This season, Bedard posted 30 goals and 75 points in 69 games for a Blackhawks team that finished 29th in the league with 72 points.
What Bedard's rebuild reality tells McKenna about year one
The advice Bedard passed along was direct: trust the process, stay confident.
"Sometimes it's hard," Bedard added, "but hockey is a big confidence game."
That one sentence is the entire manual for surviving the draft spotlight.
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Chicago went 29-39-14 this season, which means Bedard generated offense with almost no support around him.
That is what first overall in a rebuild actually looks like. It is a different beast than the hype suggests.
McKenna calling Bedard is smart. It is the hockey equivalent of calling someone who survived three years of NHL pressure to understand what the job actually costs emotionally.
The Boston Bruins made a parallel bet on youth this year. James Hagens, 19, appeared in 2 regular season games before being pushed into 3 playoff appearances as the Bruins fell to Buffalo in six.
Bedard's advice is honest. But no phone call fully prepares you for stepping onto NHL ice as the guy who was supposed to fix everything.
The gap between prospect expectation and early-career reality has swallowed bigger reputations than McKenna's. Whether he handles it better remains the question that opens only on draft night.
| POLL | ||
2 HOURS AGO | 117 ANSWERS Gavin McKenna turned to Blackhawks' Connor Bedard for advice and it's turning heads Should McKenna embrace a full rebuild like Bedard did in Chicago, or push for a trade to a contending organization? | ||
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YESTERDAY
JUNE 4, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Brett Howden | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Shayne Gostisbehere | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Mitch Marner | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Mark Jankowski | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Seth Jarvis | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jordan Staal | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Logan Stankoven | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Mark Stone | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ivan Barbashev | - | 1 | 1 | |
| William Carrier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Noah Hanifin | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Tomas Hertl | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Eric Robinson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Andrei Svechnikov | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | - | - | |
| Jackson Blake | - | - | - | |
| Jalen Chatfield | - | - | - | |
| Dylan Coghlan | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||