The debate in this thread is so stale.
Look, Kakko still may breakout to a 50-60 point player and may even produce beyond that. I use 50-60 points because I think that’s the cutoff for where we’d be “satisfied”.
At the same time, if he were named Mikko Maako and had been drafted 2nd overall by ANY other team in the league, the same people defending him would be laughing at that team’s fans for doing the same.
He may be a later blooming lottery pick. But let’s be realistic - lottery picks who play in the NHL at 18 have a certain trajectory while late 1st round picks and onward have other trajectories - a guy drafted 57th or 112th because he showed certain promising traits and teams knew they were going to let him cook in college/juniors/minors before expecting anything from him, is “on target developmentally” when he’s debuting at 22-23. Guys drafted in the top 5ish are really expected to be much closer to their finished product, or at least have traits that are seen as being immediately transferable to the NHL with a 0-1 year ETA. While we see plenty of players not even make the show until 23 and not make an impact until 23-25, it’s much more uncommon for a top 5 pick to fail to be an impact player early on and still become a successful pick.
For Kakko 3 years and his full ELC are in the bag. We know Seguin, Barkov, Reinhart, etc. took until their third year to break out and start being really impactful, but looking at drafts and looking for players drafted inside the top 5-10 who weren’t impact players by year 4, you find a lot of guys who bounced around, ended up in Europe and were largely disappointing. There are some who still became nice players. What I’m saying is that the incidence of top 5 picks not being impact players early on and successfully become impact players in years 4-5 of their career is a lot lower than it is for guys who were drafted later on with the expectation that they needed multiple extra development years. The guys who were expected to have 0-2 (max) development years either succeed fairly quickly, or tend not to at all. Is that because the ones who don’t were in the NHL too early? Possibly.
2012 top 5 picks who didn’t have a significant early impact: Griffin Reinhart. Galchenyuk looked promising early but fizzled out.
2013: all top 5 were fairly successful, only Drouin has disappointed, and that’s after earlier success.
2014: Bennett is an example of a later breakout, Dal Colle an example of a never broke out.
2015: Dylan Strome put up 57 points in his D+4 but was just not qualified and is on his third team.
2016: Puljuujarvi and Juolevi are not looking like they’re long for this league.
2017: successful top 5 aside from Patrick’s injuries.
2018: Kotkaniemi and Hayton are in danger of busting.
Top 5 picks generally don’t fail to produce or make an impact for 4-5 years after being drafted only to become point per game players or top six staples later on. Bennett is the only example I found going back to 2012. Dylan Strome put up some points but has never really succeeded for a #3. Puljuujarvi is a trade throw in at this point. Kotkaniemi is a meme because of his offer sheet and huge extension. You see examples of guys who had success early (Yakupov, Galchenyuk, Drouin) who faded, but you won’t find many top 5 picks who surged in their D+5 season suddenly.
Kakko still has some time, but anyone acting like this season isn’t huge for him and that he isn’t in danger of becoming a “bust”, or at least a big disappointment as a solid third liner, is lying to themselves. Also the Nichushkin comparison is ridiculous. Nuke had plus skating and physicality from the day he set foot in the NHL. He was able to earn a role in Colorado after failing in Dallas because he brought speed and intensity and work his way back into an opportunity. He was also a 10th overall pick, not a top 3. Kakko will likely never match Nuke’s skating even if he works on it his entire life, and Kakko to date in his career has thrown less hits than Nuke did as a rookie. Nuke is just a convenient prayer for people to hang on to. He broke 50 points for the first time at age 27. How many windows do you want this team to hold on to Kakko through just in case he’s going to make us regret trading him (by being a 50 point player) 6 years from now?
Not saying trade him. Just saying the Nuke comparison provides nothing of similarity and is just convenient for the people who can’t both root for Kakko to succeed and still acknowledge that he’s in danger of being a big disappointment.
