Connor Bedard scored more goals and handed out more assists than Leo Carlsson last season. He’s outpointed Carlsson 203-141 over their three seasons in the NHL. He was drafted with the No. 1 pick in 2023, while Carlsson went second. Bedard is the face of an Original Six franchise in a huge market, one of the faces of the league, and one of its biggest names and biggest stars. By all rights, Bedard should make more money than Carlsson.And had he asked the Blackhawks for $18 million a season, he probably would have gotten it. He was only a restricted free agent, but he’s the single most important person in the Blackhawks organization. He still had all the leverage.But when the Philadelphia Flyers signed Carlsson to that five-year, $90-million offer sheet, Bedard quickly told his agents that it didn’t change anything for him.“It’s certainly reflective of the changing economic climate in our game today,” said Don Meehan, Bedard’s agent. “But as far as Connor was concerned, he was happy with the original position that we had submitted to Chicago and negotiated. He wanted the team to have as much leeway to make the team as effective and competitive as it could be. He became aware of the changing economic landscape, but that was his decision, entirely his decision.”That’s not to say Bedard took some huge hometown discount. The Blackhawks signed their star center to a five-year deal with a $15 million annual cap hit on Saturday, making Bedard the third-highest-paid player in the league after Carlsson and Minnesota’s Kirill Kaprizov. The number is staggering on its face, but it’s the new financial reality of the NHL. The flat-cap era that followed the pandemic is over, and by the midpoint of Bedard’s contract, he very well might be a bargain.“It certainly means we’re enjoying economic growth in our game today with hockey-related revenue,” Meehan said.Money was never the issue. The sticking point — if you can call it that — was term.Recent history has seen star players sign for the max term of eight years out of their entry-level deals, as Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Jack Eichel did. But with the cap rising at the rate it currently is — Meehan said he’s heard around 8 percent a year for the foreseeable future — the league is likely to see a resurgence in so-called “bridge” deals like those signed by Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane in the late 2000s and early 2010s.When negotiations began in early June around the draft combine in Buffalo, Kyle Davidson and the Blackhawks asked for more term. This extension will expire when Bedard is just 26 years old, and buys out only one year of unrestricted free agency. His next contract promises to be a monster. On the other side, Bedard at one point considered an even shorter-term deal to maximize his earning potential. Davidson successfully pled his case, though.“That would have really placed Connor in absolute control,” Meehan said. “But he became sensitive to Chicago’s need for stability and continuity. And Kyle felt he needed to send a signal internally and externally that Connor was there for not just a short period of time, but a longer period of time. As a result, we came to a conclusion and a consensus that five years was appropriate.”The Carlsson offer sheet sent shockwaves through the hockey world, and Blackhawks fans felt it as much as anybody. Would somebody try to poach Bedard, or, considering the fact that Davidson would have had no choice but to match any offer, cripple the Blackhawks from a roster-building standpoint by signing Bedard to an offer sheet?Meehan said it was never a consideration.“Connor made it clear even after the (Carlsson) offer sheet — and before the offer sheet — that he had no intention of signing an offer sheet, that he was happy in Chicago, believed in the organization, believed in his teammates, and was quite content and happy to stay exactly where he was in Chicago,” he said.Bedard suffered a shoulder injury during a training session in Burnaby, B.C., earlier this month, but that didn’t affect negotiations, Meehan said. Bedard is expected to miss about the first six weeks of the season as he recovers. He had the option of rehabbing the shoulder and maybe avoiding surgery, but the risk was that after four to six weeks of rehab, he still might have needed surgery, forcing him to miss even more time. So Bedard took the advice of his doctors and got the surgery immediately. Meehan said the surgeon later called it a “wise decision” because the shoulder was unstable and wouldn’t have been fixed by rehab alone.Meehan cautioned that the shorter-term deal shouldn’t be construed as Bedard being uneasy about where things are in Chicago, even after three straight bottom-three finishes. Davidson aggressively added defenseman Bowen Byram this offseason, trading the No. 4 pick, a second-rounder and Louis Crevier to the Buffalo Sabres, and immediately signed Byram to a six-year deal with a $12.5-million cap hit. That’s a start. But assuming Davidson can’t land a long shot such as Dallas RFA Jason Robertson, Bedard will go into his fourth season still without a proven top-line winger. Rookie Roman Kantserov will get the first crack at it after leading the KHL in goals as a 21-year-old.“Connor’s very happy,” Meehan said. “He always was committed, and has made it clear that he’s very happy in Chicago. He really believes in his teammates, and he doesn’t suffer any constructive criticism of the team or his teammates well. He doesn’t tolerate that. He believes, and he’s totally committed.”