Sorry, Vancouver and the rest of the NHL, Connor Bedard loves playing for the Blackhawks

Connor Bedard has made it clear that he does not want out of Chicago.

The Blackhawks' superstar forward stated during his end-of-season press conference that he has no desire to leave the organization that drafted him No. 1 overall.

It sounds like he would like a long-term deal to stay with the Blackhawks.

He is eligible to sign a contract extension this summer. Bedard is making it clear that coming to a contract agreement will not be an issue, at least from his camp.

The only hang up might be is how much the Blackhawks will pay him, given that he did not make a huge leap in stardom this season. Given he will be 21 when an extension kicks in, and his stats are still something anyone would label productive, you pay the kid.

Despite an early-season regression, Bedard finished the season strong to surpass his Calder Trophy-winning rookie season numbers. Now, you can argue that he still had a sophomore slump since he had 61 points in 68 games last season compared to needing 82 games to reach 67 points this season.

However, Nathan McKinnon's second year is the epitome of a sophomore slump, whereas Bedard's second year was just not living up to massive expectations.

The expectation was Bedard likely would be an 80-to-100-point guy in the NHL despite only being 19 and having hardly any talent around him.

With Frank Nazar's emergence at the end of the season, a boatload of cap space to go after Mitch Marner, and another top-five pick, the talent around Bedard on the top line should be greatly improved for him to become a 40-goal scorer.

His dynamic offensive ability and having his career in front of him is always why other fan bases have hoped he hates it in Chicago and tries to escape.

We are looking at you, Vancouver.

The Canucks fan base has been hoping Connor will sign with his hometown team. Fans have been speculating about his wanting out of Chicago ever since his rookie season started.

Since there has never been an ounce of truth in his wanting out, call that speculation, wishful thinking rather than real reporting. Hey, people will make up whatever they can to keep hope alive.

Bedard's commitment to Chicago comments hopefully will kill the conspiracy theories of Connor planning his escape from Chicago. However, as long as the Blackhawks keep losing, desperate other teams' fan bases will continue to hope the superstar wants out.

Pointing out that he hates the Hawks losing completely ignores that he joined the Blackhawks at the very early stages of a rebuild.

The team did not have the emerging talent infrastructure like Patrick Kane had when he was taken No. 1 overall two decades ago. Of course, the Blackhawks were going to lose despite Bedard's generational talents.

Nazar was still at the University of Michigan, coming off an injury-plagued freshman season, when Bedard was drafted by the Blackhawks.

Alex Vlasic was barely playing at the NHL level and the rest of the exciting young blueliners the team has now were either at the NCAA or junior level or playing in Rockford.

This was not like Kane walking into a situation where the Hawks already had Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, and Patrick Sharp already there and skating meaningful NHL minutes.

The Hawks gutted the roster before Bedard got here just to get Connor, so building things up was going to take some time. It sounds like Bedard is on board with the plan, especially since now more of the team's future core is officially in the fold.