What if the Montreal Canadiens had the first overall pick?

Given the two players, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Montreal Canadiens take more of a liking to Kakko. He has a mature flair to his game as an 18-year-old and is a finisher first and foremost. An area the Habs desperately need improvement on is their power play and having a goal scorer opposed to another playmaker is key.

We’ve seen the impact of having finishers on a Kirk Muller run power play given how lethal Canada’s has been.

Another thing to consider is the transition. It’s difficult to play centre in the NHL, especially for Claude Julien who, despite being on the other side of the rivalry now, has Patrice Bergeron as a standard for how to play down the middle. Fortunately, Jesperi Kotkaniemi proved he was reliable enough in all three zones, but when Julien wasn’t liking what he was seeing, he threw him on the wing.

Kakko plays the easier position and imagining a partnership with Kotkaniemi could be fairly interesting.

Is that what it comes down to? Adjustment and execution in the NHL?

Regardless of all that, you have to take the best player available, and “small” or not, it’s Hughes. NHL teams have continuously been burned by not taking a player because of their size, and you have a player like Gaudreau taken in the fourth round and Alex Debrincat in the second.

Hughes is a player that makes you pay for giving him time and space with the puck and his vision could be an improvement for the Montreal Canadiens despite not being a clear-cut goal scorer himself.

You can see arguments for both sides as who is the best to take if Marc Bergevin and the rest of the Habs staff were walking up to the podium first. Hughes may take longer to reach his potential, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see Kakko end up with the better rookie season statistically. However, in the long run, Hughes will be the franchise.