There was no doubt in anyone's mind in St. Paul over which name would be called first.
ST. PAUL - Do you want to know what makes Ryan Nugent-Hopkins the kind of player that, in 1,000 opinions here this weekend, you might not have found one that didn't see him as the first overall pick?
Well, here's a story told to us by Liam Liston, the fine, young Brandon Wheat Kings goaltender who stayed out to stop some more pucks a few months back, after the morning skate at the 2011 CHL Top Prospects Game.
"We were still on the ice, a few of us, fooling around after practice. He's behind the goal line, near the corner, facing the glass," Liston recounted of Nugent-Hopkins, the newest Edmonton Oiler.
All of the sudden, Nugent-Hopkins wheels around, fires a pass to the far post, where the guy scores into a mostly open net. Liston didn't know the guy was there, and he couldn't believe that Nugent-Hopkins did.
"I asked him, 'How did you know that the guy was there?"
And here's the kicker, folks: Nugent-Hopkins replied, "I was watching the play develop in the glass."
"That shows why he's the consensus No. 1," Liston said Friday morning, before the draft. "There shouldn't be any doubt."
Alas, there was none.
In more than 20 years covering this game, we can count on one hand the number of times we have heard a tale of that kind recounted. Those players, well, most of them play a long, long time in the National Hockey League.
For now though, Nugent-Hopkins will settle for just trying to make the team. "From what I've heard, Steve's in no rush to get me playing," he said of Oilers GM Steve Tambellini, who had himself a pretty good evening Friday in St. Paul.
Tambellini chose Nugent-Hopkins, all but closed a deal to bring Ryan Smyth back to the Oilers from the Los Angeles Kings - in return for Gilbert Brule and a conditional draft pick - and with the 19th overall choice, grabbed 6-foot-4 Swedish defenceman Oscar Klefbom, the captain of his country's Under-18 team and a Swedish Elite League blue-liner at age 17.
It is the essence of a rebuild, what's going on in Edmonton, where the crop of young, stellar players is surely impressive. Now, Phase 2 if the rebuild begins, where the GM must fill in around these kids with the right veterans in the right places.
"It's going to be great," Nugent-Hopkins said. "I'm definitely going to be able to relate you a lot of the young guys in the system already. Joining a group like that… I just can't wait to get started."
Tambellini has indeed hinted that Nugent-Hopkins may be returned to his junior team in Red Deer for another season, which would provide an interesting dynamic, with the 2012 World Junior tournament being shared between Edmonton and Calgary.
But the Tambellini family has been watching Nugent-Hopkins for a while now. Right back to last summer, when Jeff Tambellini, the Vancouver Canucks winger, found himself on some summer ice in Vancouver with Nugent-Hopkins, who is Burnaby-born.
"I grab him and say, 'OK, you're coming with me on the next line,'" the younger Tambellini told The Sporting News a couple of weeks ago. "The kid set me up for three open nets ... he slips through everything.
"He makes good plays, he's great in traffic, he's good on his feet. He gave me three open netters, and I'm going, 'I'm sold.'"
In the end, so was his father.
We all saw the pick coming, but here's guessing Nugent-Hopkins saw it before anyone else.
Or, at least, the reflection in the glass.
