Jesperi Kotkaniemi is officially one of the worst top 3 drafted players since 1963

Despite reaching the 100-point plateau in his career recently, you can't say that Carolina Hurricanes forward Jesperi Kotkaniemi has had great production so far since his debut with the Habs in the fall of 2018.

Selected third overall in the 2018 draft, KK had nonetheless had an interesting first season with 34 points, including 11 goals, in 80 games, which is very good for an 18-year-old. However, what followed was not always rosy.

Since the famous hostile offer he received in the summer of 2021, which led him straight to Carolina after three seasons in Montreal, many experts were convinced that things would turn around for the young man.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen and, as reported by Habsolumentfan.com, a rather embarrassing statistic just surfaced. Let's just say it won't do anything to calm the critics who would have preferred the Habs to select a certain Brady Tkachuk instead.


According to Twitter user Tank sgt. Shab, Kotkaniemi is the forward selected in the top 3 who has taken the longest to reach the 100-point plateau in his career since a certain Garry Monahan.

Gary who? No, we're not talking about a distant relative of Sean Monahan, but rather the very first pick in the 1963 NHL draft by the Canadiens. The latter needed 294 games to reach the 100-point plateau, while KK needed 270.


Even though this list contains only forwards, it would seem that the former number 15 of the Habs is producing at the same rate as defensemen Zach Bogosian, Erik Gudbrandson and Ryan Murray, who, we agree, have never been recognized as offensive defensemen.

As for Garry Monahan's future, he had 285 points, including 116 goals, in 748 NHL games, so he didn't have a bad career, quite the opposite.

But it should be mentioned that in 1963, the NHL draft was not what it is today and, under the circumstances, it is a bit unfair to compare Kotkaniemi to a player who played in another era.

This season with the Hurricanes, KK has just 10 points in 35 games and is playing most of the time on the team's fourth line, despite the huge contract Don Waddell gave him last summer. We can only hope that things can finally get unstuck for the one Marc Bergevin preferred to Brady Tkachuk in the 2018 draft.