Ryan Kennedy

You know, Matthew Schaefer was very close in his rookie year to making the playoffs.

And it does sort of feel like Chicago needs to figure out how to properly support Bedard.

So, yeah, it's going to be an interesting one.

And, you know, I mean, not to bang the drum on this, but if all the GMs were in the same room like they used to be in the draft, maybe we would see more action.

But I guess they can just call each other names.

long distance on Friday to make deals.

Yeah, I think one key for Malhotra was when Jake O'Brien...

was out of the lineup, you know, world juniors and whatnot, Malhotra stepped up and was a driver on that Brantford Bulldogs team, which was basically the best team in major junior for long stretches.

And, you know, they had some bad luck in the playoffs.

They got knocked out when they probably shouldn't have.

But for Malhotra, he got a chance to step into a role and kind of test drive it.

And, you know, knowing that,

O'Brien was going to come back.

So it wasn't the pressure of being thrust into that number one role and being like, you got to carry the mail.

It's sort of like, see how this goes.

It's like it's a little trial run.

And he thrived.

And you think about all the aspects of his game.

He's a 200-foot player.

He can obviously put points on the board.