Move over, Jack Hughes? After Finland’s 6-1 thumping of Switzerland to advance to Saturday’s gold medal game against the United States, Finnish players including Aleksi Heponiemi and Henri Jokiharju had some high praise for teammate Kaapo Kakko.
While Hughes is regarded as the consensus number one pick at this early stage, Kakko also projects to be a high pick. Heponiemi believes Kakko to be better than Hughes, and Jokiharju specifically compared his game to that of Leafs star Auston Matthews.
While it seems safe to say that Hughes’ place atop most draft boards is secure for the time being, there’s going to be a lot of hockey left before the draft. In the final pre-draft ranking published by TSN’s Craig Button before the World Juniors, Kakko was in the No. 2 spot to Hughes — and now, quite poetically, they’ll meet in the gold medal game.
Through six games, Kakko has a goal and three assists, while Hughes, who missed three round-robin games with an undisclosed injury, has three assists in three games.
