Canadian phenom Connor Bedard, whose historic performance at the 2023 World Junior Championship sealed his fate as the presumptive #1 overall pick at this year’s NHL Entry Draft, was today awarded the IIHF’s inaugural Male Player Of The Year Award for the 2022-23 season.

Bedard, the 17 year old forward who has had redeveloping NHL teams salivating at the thought of “falling hard for Bedard,” with the Chicago Blackhawks the likely suitor after winning the NHL Draft Lottery, was a force to be reckoned with at this year’s World Juniors, following up his eight points in seven games to win World Juniors Gold in 2022 with a staggering 23 points in eight games at this year’s tournament, earning him tournament MVP, top forward and All-Star honours en route to Team Canada’s second straight Gold Medal.

Bedard also set not just the Canadian tournaments points record, but also surpassed Czech legend Jaromír Jágr for the most points for an under-nineteen player, and became just the fourth player, and second Canadian, to lead the tournament in goals, assists and points outright, following Vladimir Růžička (Czechia, 1983), Raimo Helminen (Finland, 1984) and Brayden Schenn (Canada, 2011).

Bedard is now a perfect three-for-three when suiting up for Team Canada, capturing Gold at the World Under-18 Championships in 2021, followed by World Junior Gold in both Edmonton and Halifax. While a consideration for Canada’s Gold Medal winning World Championship squad in Tampere this year, Bedard opted to sit out following a similarly incredible club season, notching 143 points in 57 games for the Western Hockey League’s Regina Pats, becoming the first player to win Player of the Year, Top Prospect and Top Scorer in a single season.

Bedard received 31.8% of the vote to win the trophy, beating out Artūrs Šilovs (19.6%) of Latvia, Andres Ambühl (19.2%) of Switzerland, Moritz Seider (14.3%) of Germany, Adam Fantilli (11.9%) of Canada, John-Jason Peterka (2.1%) of Germany, and Dominik Kubalík (1.0%) of Czechia.

Photo Credit: 2023 World Junior Championship – IIHF – HHOF – IOC