Jack Hughes:  In my mind he’s superior to both Dahlin and Matthews as a prospect. It may seem like a bold statement but I believe he’s that good. Being in early November, there’s still a lot of hockey left to confirmed or refuted that statement, last year I thought the same about Dahlin being superior than Matthews but I changed my mind during the course of the season. He may not boast Matthews’ shot nor his size but offense goes more through him than with the Leaf’s center.

Many in the hockey world believe that the number one defenseman position is more crucial to a team’s success than the number one center position but I tend to simply look at the impact a player have on a game and from what I’ve seen, Hughes is responsible of more zone exits and zones entries and control the plays more than Dahlin.  Few players in the world are as dynamic as he is. Hands, creativity, vision and hockey IQ are all off the charts. The latter one seems like a vague term in the hockey world but to me, when it comes to hockey IQ I would describe it as doing the right play at the right time, finding a way to get to open areas, exploiting what you are given by the opposing players but also realise your own weaknesses and play accordingly, Hughes does exactly that with what seems like a disadvantage with his size.

With his speed and elusiveness, he never gets check in the open ice but when it came along the board he increases his base of levitation to reduce his center of mass and become more difficult to push but also to create separation between his opponent and the puck. Another thing that he does well is keeping the defending team guessing, he likes to shoot on the half wall on the PP which make him kind of a double-threat with his playmaking genius, his shot is a little bit subpar though. 

We don’t know how it will turn out, that may prevent him reaching the 100 pts plateau since Patrick Kane, with whom Hughes is often compared, boasts an elite shot and release and scored a lot of goals when he reached that barrier. But at the same time, the same was told about McDavid in his draft year and he tucked 41 goals last season.