Rabid Ranger is right when he says that Toews was not a cog on Team Canada at the WJC. But let's remember he was 17, and Sidney Crosby is the only 17-year-old forward to star for Canada in likely the last decade. (Nash, Lecavalier and Thornton played for Canada at 17, and often looked out of place, especially Nash).
I believe it was RR who also accurately pointed out that Kessel dominated Canada (2 goals and 2 assists, I believe) in the final of last year's WU18.
Left out of the argument thus far, though, is that Toews has been the best player at two tournaments against his own age group: the 2004-05 WU17 and the 2005 Junior World Cup, an under-18 tournament. Toews' team went on to win gold at both tournaments. So he won while dominating his own age group.
If you think Toews is another Brad Richards, you're going to be disappointed. Mike Richards, maybe; like M. Richards, Toews oozes character, leadership, grit, hustle and smarts. Kessel has a much stronger offensive upside, but a lot of what we're saying now is what we said about David Legwand in 1998. (The only difference is that Legwand kind of came out of nowhere in his draft year, while Kessel has been under intense scrutiny all year.
Who would I pick if I had the No. 1 pick? Right now, I'd take E. Johnson, but if given the choice between Kessel and Toews, I'd take Kessel. If I had Toews ranked No. 1, I'd trade down to No. 3. If I'm St. Louis, I take Kessel in a heart beat. St. Louis needs that marque, marketable, potentially dynamic scorer. If I'm Pittsburgh, and Erik Johnson is already gone, and I have lots of talented offensive forwards, I strongly look at Toews.
I think expectations were a little too high for Kessel this year. Thanks to his play as a 17-year-old, and the comparisons to Crosby, I think people were expecting him to put up similar numbers to Paul Kariya in Kariya's freshman year. (100 points in 39 games, lead his team to a national championship). As it stands now, I don't think he'll match the numbers of Dany Heatley or Zach Parise in their first year. I think we need to re-evaluate our expectations for Kessel, and realize that what we have is a future first-line scoring forward, but not the franchise forward that many expected.