Normally I'd say with such a high pick we MUST take the opportunity to draft that highly skilled forward you can only get with such high picks.. but this had to be the year where no good centers are available, or a winger who doesn't have good straight away speed, isn't good defensively and is not big... I know Zadina is agile, has good acceleration, great wrister, great stickhandling... but I watch Zadina highlights, not even shift by shift videos, but pure highlights vids and I'm scared that Zadina's skillset will not translate to the NHL level all that well. And that even if it does, he will not be the cornerstone of a franchise. I mean he's not big, not fast, not good defensively and a winger. Even in the best case scenario, this doesn't speak to me. I have a hard time imagining him as one of the league's premier player. It's nice that he wants to be a hab though. I am just very iffy about him as a player, especially considering this is the least important position in the game and not an area of need (even if drafting by needs is stupid).
Even though, like I said above, we should almost always draft forwards with top 3 picks.... I think I'd be more tempted with Boqvist or Hughes in this particular instance. Hughes seems the 3rd most NHL ready prospect of the draft to me with his showing at the WC after Dahlin/Svechnikov. He's got the 2 most important things we should look for : insane skating, great hockey sense. But he looks really small out there, and he doesn't have a great slap, decent wrister though. He tends to like to slow things down before making a play after gaining the blue line, and at the NHL level, sometimes, that doesn't work since players take away your time and space and you have to do everything at max speed. We also already have Mete as a diminutive left handed D. If you stack up on small D on the left, teams will have strategies to overload the left side with size and speed and we'll be unable to counter it.
Boqvist impresses me more as a prospect because he has that shot, wrist, snap, slap you name it that Hughes does not have. He's a great skater/stickhandler as well, a bit bigger than Hughes (not just height but he seems to have a naturally bigger frame). He's also 10 months younger than Hughes.... which is a huge deal. How much more would his stock rise if he had another 10 months of development. Who knows... Just sucks that he's a right handed shot given that we have Petry and Weber signed for so long. But then again we should rebuild anyway, and never draft by need. Another thing that sucks is Boqvist has had 2 concussions already...
I don't know enough about Kotkaniemi to say anything.
To me it's between Zadina, Boqvist, Hughes, Kotkaniemi (just because he's a C and a riser, and I don't know him so he might actually be the best pick).
I'd rather have Boqvist or Hughes over Zadina to be honest. But I'd rather have a really skilled center or even winger over either one of Boqvist/Hughes, I just don't know if there is one, not one worth getting with a top 3 pick anyway - assuming Svechnikov goes 2nd.
All in all, to me, this is not a draft where there are a lot of sure things. I am confident Hughes, Zadina and Boqvist should become good NHLers. But I was a lot more excited with the Galchenyuk and Sergachev picks tbh. Galchenyuk even had 1st overall mettle back then given his injury, people thought without it he would have been first overall. But these guys we seemingly have the choice of... they just don't do it for me. Part of me is hoping we go off the board completely with someone no one saw coming and then he turns out to be an amazing player. But I have zero faith in Timmins getting us a good forward and him developing in Montreal... we can't have nice things.
