Blackhawks vs. Penguins prediction: Connor Bedard debuts

The 2023-24 NHL regular season gets underway with a three-game slate Tuesday night, and there is no doubt that the prime-time showdown between Connor Bedard’s Chicago Blackhawks and Sidney Crosby’s Pittsburgh Penguins is the clear headliner, even on a night when the Vegas Golden Knights will raise their first Stanley Cup banner. 

Hockey fans have been waiting for the better part of three years to watch Bedard, who was taken No. 1 overall by the Blackhawks in the 2023 draft, play an NHL game, and for his debut to come against Crosby’s Penguins feels almost poetic.

A nice bit of scheduling by the league.

Blackhawks vs. Penguins prediction

While expectations for Bedard are higher than they’ve been for any NHL debutante since Crosby, his team is likely to be among the worst in the league this season.

That makes Tuesday’s betting market quite interesting because bookmakers are going to see a ton of action on Bedard to score a goal.

At the same time, it’s unlikely that punters will be lining up at the window to bet on the Blackhawks, who are projected to be 26 points worse than the Penguins according to their respective Over/Unders, to pull the upset as a +185 ’dog.

But I think both bets — Bedard to score and the Blackhawks to win — are worth a shot Tuesday night.

We’ll start with Bedard.

This could end up as the chalkiest player prop of the entire NHL season and the +150 price certainly feels like it is being taxed a bit, but this matchup should set up pretty well for the wunderkind.

The new face of the Blackhawks is a shoot-first player who thrives in transition and Tuesday’s tilt with the Penguins should be an up-and-down affair since neither defense grades out particularly well. 

The Blackhawks are easily the weaker unit, but the Penguins finished 19th in goals against average and 22nd in expected goals against in 2022-23, so don’t be surprised if we see these teams trade chances throughout the night, something that will certainly help our prospects to cash our bet on Bedard, who already may possess one of the best shots in the entire league.

He won’t need many chances. 

Pittsburgh’s pedestrian defense also is what opens up a path to success for the Blackhawks to win this game outright.

The Penguins were mediocre defensively by any metric you looked at last season, and goaltender Tristan Jarry struggled to find consistency, which caused Pittsburgh to lose plenty of games to lesser opponents.

And while the Penguins are clearly the better overall team, the Blackhawks should be an improved squad compared to what we saw for the majority of last season.

Not only is Bedard a first-line talent already, but he’s got some help with Taylor Hall, Ryan Donato and Andreas Athanasiou joining him in the top-six.

Betting on the NHL?

Also important to note is Chicago added actual NHL players to its roster to fill out the bottom-six.

Nick Foligno, Corey Perry and Jason Dickinson aren’t needle-movers, but that unit should be much more competitive compared to some of the players Luke Richardson turned to last season when his team was unabashedly tanking.

At the time of writing the Blackhawks are sitting at +185 to win Tuesday night, but bettors looking to back the underdog in this spot should be patient.

While we could see the line on Bedard to score his first NHL goal shorten as we get closer to puck drop, the moneyline on Chicago could end up closing around +200. 

The Pick: Blackhawks +210 (Bet365)