Who’s No. 1? Uncertainty surrounding top pick at NHL draft

Rather than tip his hand on who the Montreal Canadiens plan to select with the first pick in the NHL draft, general manager Kent Hughes joked they’ll end up with all three of Shane Wright, Juraj Slafkovsky and Logan Cooley.

If the Canadiens want to make a splash, they could end up with two of them.

There’s uncertainly surrounding who’s going No. 1 for the first time in nearly a decade, when the Colorado Avalanche chose Nathan MacKinnon in 2013. In the aftermath of MacKinnon leading the Avalanche to the Stanley Cup, the Canadiens are confronted with a potentially franchise-changing decision in their first time picking first in 42 years and as the hosts of the draft in Montreal.

“If there was any one player with a perfect track record, it would be a pretty simple decision and we probably would have already declared what we were going to do,” Hughes said Wednesday. “Everything we can know, whether it’s Shane or Logan or Juraj, we want to know to what extent they will be able to live with the pressure of playing in Montreal.”

Wright for years has been playing with pressure, in the microscope in the Ontario Hockey League as the long-projected top pick in this draft. He put up 94 points in 63 games of junior hockey this past season.

The Canadian center believes he’s NHL-ready and wants the pressure of getting picked first overall by the Canadiens at Bell Centre 51 years after they selected Guy LaFleur in the same slot.

“I’m competitive,” Wright said. “I always want to be first, I always want to be the best. I think no matter what position you’re in, no matter where you’re ranked, it’s always your goal and you always want to be first. You want to be that first guy chosen and that’s always been my mindset.”

Dan Marr, head of NHL