I would say that Kakko will gain probably even more to his game than Hughes will, by them both getting still more strength. Hughes is the type whom has naturally a lot of the fast muscle cells, as he has been really having a lot of the explosive speed already since very young. Players that have that are naturally also often relatively light by weight and also if they gain more weight by training more general strength, they might even lose slightly some of the speed and explosiveness that they have naturally had. Just slightly, but still by some amount. Especially if the weight gain is too sudden.
This will most likely also happen to the type like Kakko (with not as great natural explosiveness) by some amount first, as he will also need to still train more general strength and core strength. But when he gets to training more the explosiveness for his legs and does that with a lot of hard work, he should be able to make the skating difference between him and Hughes smaller.
I’m not claiming Kakko will ever be as good skater as Hughes will be at his best, but if he will make the difference still smaller and he will definitely be always bigger and stronger than Hughes, I would say that gaining more strength will still most probably give even more the benefit to Kakko. Of course gaining the right amount of strength and body mass will be a great thing for both of them, but I’m just pretty sure that gaining strength will be even more beneficial for Kakko through more improved skating.
The final decisive thing between them will be though their hockey IQ. The one with the better hockey IQ will be after all the better player in the NHL.
Right now I have to say that I’m not sure that which one of them after all has the better hockey IQ. And I’m not yet at least completely sure if they have the real superstar class hockey IQ. I was doubting more Kakko’s hockey IQ before his play in the WHC now. But they both have now definitely shown that much of glimpses of spectacular hockey IQ, that I can say that after all I see at least some absolute superstar potential in them both.
They seem that even to me as prospects that it seems pretty clear to me that Hughes will be picked as the 1st overall pick because of being American and a center. But right now I see Kakko as the better player and I could see even his potential a bit better, but on the other hand I think the before mentioned Kakko’s skating improvement will take more time and work than for Hughes to catch up with Kakko as a player by gaining enough strength to compete well with NHL players.
But still I see Kakko’s potential even higher when he finally gets his strength and explosiveness training finished. It will just take still many years for him to get there, and it can very well be that the first couple of his NHL seasons will not show as much develoment as he will gain later.
I might of course be even slightly biased with my thoughts here. Definitely trying not to be, but the subconsciousness can be a real biaaatch, you know...
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