2023 IIHF World Junior Championship

WJC: Connor Bedard Ties Canada Record With Seven Points Against Germany

WJC: Connor Bedard Ties Canada Record With Seven Points Against Germany

Connor Bedard scored seven points to tie a Team Canada record at the World Juniors in an 11-2 win over Germany.

Dec 29, 2022 by Chris Peters
WJC: Connor Bedard Ties Canada Record With Seven Points Against Germany

Three goals, four assists. For most, that's a great tournament showing. For Connor Bedard, that was Wednesday. 

The 17-year-old phenom from North Vancouver tied a Team Canada record with seven points in a single game, potting a hat trick and four assists as Canada rolled past Germany 11-2 in their second preliminary-round game at the 2023 World Junior Championship.

Bedard matched the Canadian record co-held by Dave Andreychuk (1983) and Gabriel Bourque (2009), who each also had three goals and four assists in their record-setting performances. The tournament's overall record for points in a single game is held by Peter Forsberg who had 10 points for Sweden against Japan at the 1993 World Juniors.

After Canada got stunned by Czechia in the tournament opener, they needed a big bounce-back performance and did they ever get one. 

Bedard's first point came on an assist on the first of three goals scored by Dylan Guenther (ARI), however Germany managed to tie the game shortly after. From there, it was all Canada. 

Shane Wright (SEA) scored to give the Canadians the lead and then Bedard answered with his first goal of the game in the last minutes of the opening period.

The projected No. 1 overall pick then potted each of Canada's next two goals to open the second period. He assisted the next goal scored by Guenther to have a hand in four straight Team Canada goals. Bedard grabbed another helper on a Guenther goal in the second and then closed his account in the third period with an assist on Joshua Roy's (MTL) goal that made it 11-1 at that point.

Each of Bedard's seven points were primary points with either a goal or first assist.

With the 11-2 win, Canada improved to 1-0-0-1 at the World Juniors and put themselves back in the hunt to finish top of the group. They'll next play Austria, which has given up 20 goals through their first two games, so there's a good chance Bedard is going to be on record watch again with the way he's playing.

Combined with his goal scored in Canada's opener, Bedard leads the World Juniors with eight points through his first two games. That matches his point total over seven games from the 2022 tournament where he had four goals and four assists to help Canada win gold.

Wednesday's performance does suddenly put Bedard on watch for some other record rewriting, especially with that upcoming contest against Austria.

The single-tournament record for points by a U18 player at the World Juniors is held by Jaromir Jagr, who had 18 points in the 1990 WJC. Wayne Gretzky is next with 17 points scored when he was just 16 years old. Eric Lindros and current Edmonton Oiler Jesse Puljujarvi also had 17 points as U18 players at the World Juniors. Bedard will have five more games to get into that rarified air for underagers at this tournament.

The all-time tournament record for a player of any age at the World Juniors is the seemingly untouchable 31 that Forsberg scored at the 1993 WJC. The next closest player on the list to him is Markus Naslund, who was his teammate that year. No one else is within nine points of the Hockey Hall of Famer.

Without getting too far ahead of ourselves, Bedard just had one of the all-time great games on the biggest stage in junior hockey and that's special in its own right. There's a reason why the worst teams in the NHL aren't too bummed about their bad records this season.