I May Be In The Minority . . . But I Believe That Kaapo Kakko Could Be Selected 1st Overall in 2019

[ijuka]

You can look at Kakko's individual tools and reason that his hands are pretty good also, that he has good skating etc. and that his shot is better but the reality is that Hughes just is a significantly more effective player, thinks the game at another level and just is plain faster at performing actions.

 

[docbenton]

I agree with you actually that Hughes is not that effective right now, but I think he's going to develop into the bonafide #1 guy by the time the draft rolls around. At the moment I actually prefer Turcotte. The biggest problem with Hughes is strength. He's really really weak on the puck and doesn't have Quinn's balance. But he'll get stronger and become a better possession player, and his game will come together. He's got the right stuff mentally. McDavid had a terrible shot too; it got better.

 

[ZEBROA]

Finland just stop with these top prospects, i want the games against you to be exiting even in the future. (Worried Swede).

 

[AmericanDream]

let us see him get ranked 2nd overall before we start even thinking he can challenge Hughes...he has upside for sure, but Cozens and Turcotte seem the likely bets if any to dethrone Hughes.

 

[Conspiracy Theorist]

1st or 2nd, it doesn't really matter as we have seen with Barkov and Laine. Even Heiskanen could be better than Hischier.

 

[ookhaab]

Finland just stop with these top prospects, i want the games against you to be exiting even in the future. (Worried Swede).

You say this after Dahlin went 1st overall and Pettersson had historical season in SHL... I think you guys are going to be just fine!

 

[1OApick]

let us see him get ranked 2nd overall before we start even thinking he can challenge Hughes...he has upside for sure, but Cozens and Turcotte seem the likely bets if any to dethrone Hughes.

European players dont get love before year they are drafted. Just wait and see.

 

[ViktorBaeArvidsson]

And here I am just basing his skill on his amazing name.

 

[The Kingslayer]

Him or Hughes will look great in Colorado.

 

[Kevin Musto]

I think Honka has a better chance at 1OA than Kakko.

 

[TheWhiskeyThief]

You have obviously no clue what you are talking about. Every team in finnish Liiga looses their best players every year. TPS has probably the third or fourth best roster this year so saying they will struggle becouse they lost few players sends complitely wrong message for those who don't follow the Liiga, like your self apparently.

I must’ve pissed that money away on Ruutu last year and walking my keister off to get to Gatorade Center must’ve been for nothing then. Lose your 1st line and Virta(who would’ve been a nice 2nd liner if he hadn’t gotten pushed down the lineup before the playoffs.

Palve/ Budish/Kakko would make a good line, Korpikoski is done in every other league, didn’t look good in CHL games. Hopefully Pajuniemi steps up to play well w/ Filppula.

I live in Arizona, seen games in Turku, Helsinki, Kuopio, Tempere, Rauma, Hämeenlinna, Oulu and Vassa in the last 5 years; so save your weak sauce for someone else

 

[BleedWell]

I must’ve pissed that money away on Ruutu last year and walking my keister off to get to Gatorade Center must’ve been for nothing then. Lose your 1st line and Virta(who would’ve been a nice 2nd liner if he hadn’t gotten pushed down the lineup before the playoffs.

Palve/ Budish/Kakko would make a good line, Korpikoski is done in every other league, didn’t look good in CHL games. Hopefully Pajuniemi steps up to play well w/ Filppula.

I live in Arizona, seen games in Turku, Helsinki, Kuopio, Tempere, Rauma, Hämeenlinna, Oulu and Vassa in the last 5 years; so save your weak sauce for someone else

Okay, sounds good.
However your original point was still nonesense.

 

[Loffer]

Jack Hughes doesn't look huge even if you thought so. Just look, don't think. Man, he is so small he might get picked around those positions Johnny Hockey was by the inconsistent and suffocating Flames when we were young. Well, that would be funny.

Kaakko then again means southeast in Finnish and if we take one "a" out we will have Kakko himself from the Finnish southwest, or "lounas", translated as lunch I will be out to. Furthermore, this Kakko might be seen as a corrupted form of a very popular if not vernacular expression among toddlers meaning quite literally shit, but being fair and square and roundabout, the most probable etymology of this relatively rare surname points towards "kakkonen" in which the post-fix "nen" should be interpreted as an index of a pedigree, a noble hick of Savolax origin, an eastern province in Finland with many exotic regional pecularities like fish n cock, a kinda bread stuffed with dead and mutilated animals, and loertzy, a sweet apple pastry resembling a hot twat, a cheap and nutritious delicacy sold at town squares and markets, in white wagons and desks by chubby women with loud voices and, more often than not, orgasms - OR a diminutive form of "kakko", a little kakko, known locally as "kakkokukkonen" or, alternatively, "kukkokakkonen", cockycackone, also as "pikkukakkonen" (a pleonasm with too "littles"), a tv show for preschool kids, very handy for single mothers and fathers when no mothers in sight. What else, not much but nevertheless something. We will, after a keen and stern study and multiple test runs reassess and conclude that while our analysis might, in the end, prove to be only a redundant, premature and speculative example of an academic scouting work, report or write-up, of little practical value or applicational merits, let alone commercial potential (yet, we make it), the paper still managed to squeeze out this final implication, logical observation of the inner eye of the intellect: a root word of an equivocal status, "kakko" is in the given context of orders and hierarchies, comparisons and draftings, rankings and ratings, most plausibly interpreted as meaning SECOND, not the standard temporal unit, but rather THE second in the strange order of things and preferences. If we accept this most fluent and natural reading we can casually infer and decide that Kaapo Kakko will be drafted on the second spot in the NHL Entry Draft next summer. Why is that? TBH, we have no frigging clue, only that our predictions seem to hit the bell, bend and curve time and space and become truths. If not, then we heard it through the grapevine or from the table next to us when eating stakes and fries, the French guy had a really weird accent but that is part of our work, he said "kakka'a" if I got it right.

Oh man. LOL

 

[TeddyBare]

Pre-season hype

Remember Boqvist
Remember Chychrun

 

[ZEBROA]

You say this after Dahlin went 1st overall and Pettersson had historical season in SHL... I think you guys are going to be just fine!

We dont know if they can handle NHL, they should be fine, but we dont know. Barkov, Laine, Rantanen, Aho already proven themself, i can go on but i dont want to... Sweden need C and Snipers not more Dmen. Finland has a lot of high end forwards, Sweden has depth but not so much high end.

As long as the games still gets interesting and close in the future im happy. The games agains Finland is most nervwrecking by far.

 

[Daximus]

We dont know if they can handle NHL, they should be fine, but we dont know. Barkov, Laine, Rantanen, Aho already proven themself, i can go on but i dont want to... Sweden need C and Snipers not more Dmen. Finland has a lot of high end forwards, Sweden has depth but not so much high end.

As long as the games still gets interesting and close in the future im happy. The games agains Finland is most nervwrecking by far.

Sweden has two solid prospects in Raymond and Holtz coming through the pipeline. Long term but by next Olympics they may be established NHLers. Add that to Petterson and their wicked D depth and they will be a force. Finland on the other hand seems to be stacked the other way. But some interesting guys in Heiskanen, Valimaki and the Honka brothers. Both countries seem to be rounding out a little bit. Hopefully NHLers can compete in the next Olympics because its going to be a big one. Canada, USA, Sweden, Finland all have crazy strong potential rosters right now. Russia is getting there on defence but the goalies they have are among some of the best. They are always the hardest to predict prospects wise though for people in NA. Then you have dark horse challengers like Czech Republic, Switzerland and Germany who could surprise some teams with upsets.

 

[Blade Paradigm]

Kakko just played his first Liiga game of the season and notched the OT winner on a breakaway.

He logged 19 minutes of TOI on the first line and was one of the, if not the, best forward for TPS.







This is not about "hype." On the contrary, there is very little discussion in the hockey world about Kakko being a contender for first overall. This is about using my eyes and seeing a very impressive 17-year-old player.

 

[BleedWell]

Kakko just played his first Liiga game of the season and notched the OT winner on a breakaway.

He logged 19 minutes of TOI on the first line and was one of the, if not the, best forward for TPS.







This is not about "hype." On the contrary, there is very little discussion in the hockey world about Kakko being a contender for first overall. This is about using my eyes and seeing a very impressive 17-year-old player.

I was at the game and saw him first time live. I knew he was good but wow! I think he was easily the best player on the ice today and TPS has many elite players on Liiga standards. Great start for the draft year for him.

 

[Jean Luc Discard]

Just based on a few clips here 'n there, I think that the closest comparable for Hughes is RNH and for Kakko is Jamie Benn. If some GM wants to put a heavy premium on the center position upon picking at #1 then go for it but the better player i.e. the player with most overall impact on the ice drops down to #2.

 

[1OApick]

His work ethic is amazing. Puts effort to get puck back and makes plays. Really interesting prospect.

 

[kroypuck]

Great player no doubt. Just don't see him catching Hughes, especially with the players that Hughes has around him this year. Everyone is expecting him to shatter all NTDP records. IMO Kakko's the favorite for #2, but no where near Hughes status.

 

[ijuka]

A good Liiga season is certainly what it would take to get into the conversations. Liiga players tend to almost invariably be risers in draft rankings.

I think that about 0.7 PPG would already be an excellent season that should cement a #2OA pick for him. I still think that it'd take a lot more than it perhaps should for him to get picked #1 simply due to the NA and center bias.

One thing I noticed is that I believe his skating has improved somewhat.

 

[teravaineSAROS]

Man I hope we'll see those shift-by-shift videos with him the way we saw with Laine/Pulju

 

[1OApick]

Man I hope we'll see those shift-by-shift videos with him the way we saw with Laine/Pulju

At prospectshifts.com you can see his shift by shift videos. Game against HPK is not there yet.

 

[Blade Paradigm]

Kakko scored a goal and an assist tonight, his second and third points of the season, in his second Liiga game of 2018-19.



That's 3 points in 2 games.

If one counts his Champions League games last week, he has 5 points in his last 4 professional games with TPS.