DFO Rundown Insider Edition<\/a> free agency recap special with Irfaan Gaffar and David Pagnotta, Gaffar reported Bedard is seeking a deal worth around the same $17 million AAV figure Kirill Kaprizov is making with the Minnesota Wild.<\/p>\n\u201cConnor Bedard is in for a payday. He saw Bowen Byram get a payday. I think that Connor Bedard is looking at Kirill Kaprizov money,\u201d Gaffar said. \u201cI think that is a situation and that is a number that he\u2019s looking at, and I do strongly believe that he thinks he deserves it. I\u2019m not entirely sure the Chicago Blackhawks as an organization are close to that number when discussing Connor Bedard right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bedard, who turns 21 on July 17, saw his entry-level contract expire at the end of June. He tallied 30 goals and 45 assists for 75 points in 69 games with the Hawks last season.<\/p>\n
With Carlsson\u2019s new salary set at $18 million per season, Bedard\u2019s camp can easily justify asking for $17 million per season \u2013 and perhaps more after Friday\u2019s news.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think when the number comes in on him, on Carlsson and (Cutter) Gauthier, and some of these other guys, we\u2019re going to look at this and go, ‘okay, this is where the league is going,’\u201d said Pagnotta.<\/p>\n
The Blackhawks have just over $29.3 million in available salary cap space and certainly have the room to fit a monster contract like the one Bedard is looking for.<\/p>\n
Chicago GM Kyle Davidson is believed to have started contract talks in the $10 million to $12 million range, but that figure will surely have to increase.<\/p>\n
Bedard injured his left shoulder on Thursday while practicing on ice in Vancouver and an update on his status is expecting in the next couple of days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bar is now set. As we wait to see if the Anaheim Ducks are going to match…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-744118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}