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Who the Canadiens pick at No. 1 will tell us a lot about Hughes

MICHAEL TRAIKOS

MONTREAL — What are the Montreal Canadiens going to look like for the next decade?

Are they going to be a responsible, tight-checking hockey team? Are they going to try to run up the score every chance they get? Or are they going to be a mix of the two?

That’s really the decision that GM Kent Hughes is facing in choosing Shane Wright, Juraj Slafkovsky or Logan Cooley with the No. 1 pick in Thursday’s draft.

This is a case study of Hughes as much as it is about each of the prospects. We are going to know a lot more about the agent-turned-gm and his rebuild after this week than we did in the past six months on the job. This is a personality test. And while there might not be a right or wrong answer, try telling that to the fans who are going to read into this selection for years — if not forever.

Is Hughes a gambler? If so, then he’ll take Slafkovsky, whose size and skill have recently put the Slovakian-born winger ahead of Wright on most draft lists. If he wants to play it safe, then he’ll go with Wright, who might not have as high of a ceiling but is pretty much a guarantee as a No. 2 centre. Is he patient? Then maybe he’ll select Cooley, an undersized centre who is heading off to college next year but who could develop into the next Trevor Zegras.

Or maybe he’ll surprise everyone by trading down. Or by selecting the best defenceman. Or maybe even roll the dice on a Russian.

Whatever happens, this is one where Montreal can’t get it wrong the way that GM Marc Bergevin got it wrong when he selected Jesperi Kotkaniemi with the No. 3 pick ahead of Brady Tkachuk and Quinn Hughes in 2018. But it’s also one where Hughes has to do what’s right for the team.

In other to do that, he has to define the type of team the rebuilding Habs want to be.

A similar decision faced Brendan Shanahan in his first draft with the Toronto Maple Leafs. With the eighth overall pick in 2014, the decision was ostensibly between William Nylander and Nick Ritchie. And at the time, the two prospects could not be more different. One was European. The other Canadian. One was flashy. The other physical. Old school fans wanted Ritchie, who had the size and demeanour to be the kind of power forward that Toronto had always coveted. But the Leafs place an emphasis on speed and skill and chose Nylander, who epitomized what would eventually become known as the Shanaplan.

The following year, Toronto chose the pint-sized Mitch Marner instead of two-way defenceman Noah Hanifin with the No. 4 pick. And then, with the No. 1 pick in 2016, the team selected Auston Matthews.

See a trend?

So what is Hughes’ plan? What type of team is he trying to build? And how quickly is he trying to build it?

Do the Canadiens, who already have a young core of Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, want to complement that skill with a two-way centre in Wright, who could give them more of a defensive conscience up front? Or do they continue to add to the offence with a winger in Slafkovsky who is a threat to score every time he is on the ice? Or do they go with Cooley, who might be a lot further away than the other two, but who has the tools to become a top-line centre?

Complicating matters is that neither of the players is a guarantee. Right now, it’s more of a guessing game, with Wright and Slafkovsky splitting the No. 1 votes on most scouting lists.

“This is a draft where there’s a little bit of warts on everybody,” said North American Central Scouting’s Mark Seidel, who has Slafkovsky No. 1, followed by Cooley, then defenceman Simon Nemec, and then Wright.

“Nobody is the ideal prospect.”

Wright, who has drawn lofty comparisons to Patrice Bergeron, might actually be closer to Ryan Nugenthopkins than the five-time Selke Trophy winner. To some, Slafkovsky can be the next Jaromir Jagr. To others, he could be Jesse Puljujarvi, who also shot up the draft rankings based on his play at the world championships. Cooley, whom Hughes knows well from watching his son play with and against him as part of the US National Development Team, is the same size as Patrick Kane. But Cooley is a centre — not a wing — and never put up the points that Kane did.

“I think we’re going to be looking back in a few years saying I can’t believe Slafkovsky slipped and wasn’t No. 1, or I can’t believe there was ever any debate,” said Seidel. “The safe pick is Wright. I say safe pick because the bust level is zero. At the very worst, he’s a third line centre. If Slafkovsky turns out to be a bust, you’ve set your franchise back.”

Of course, not all busts look the same.

A bust can be Alexandre Daigle, who wouldn’t even be a first-round pick if you had to do the 1993 draft again. But a bust can also be picking Aaron Ekblad and Sam Reinhart when you could have had Leon Draisaitl in 2014. or choosing Nico Hischier and Nolan Patrick ahead of Cale Makar in 2017.

“This is a draft where there’s a little bit of warts on everybody.” Mark Seidel North American Central Scouting

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2022-07-07T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-07-07T07:00:00.0000000Z

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