VANCOUVER, British Columbia — This storyline was not lost on anyone — not the Rangers, not the Devils, and not the teenagers in the middle of it all.

A new chapter in the Hudson River Rivalry has begun in earnest with the biggest draft in New York-area hockey history commencing Friday night. It started with the Devils going the consensus route and taking American center Jack Hughes with the No. 1-overall pick. That allowed the Rangers to take Finnish winger Kaapo Kakko at No. 2, beginning a comparison of 18-year-olds that will continue for the foreseeable future.

“You know, that’s true,” Rangers team president John Davidson said. “I was thinking about that this morning. And how good is that? Rivalries across the river. It’s going to be talked about for a long, long, long time. I think that’s just the greatest. It’s fantastic. I think that’s what hockey needs.”

It must have been a bit of a strange moment for the Rangers when they finally heard the Devils — through the voice of old nemesis Martin Brodeur — announce that they were taking Hughes. That was when it became clear Kakko was going to be theirs after so many months of speculation.

“I think we’ve been in the state of mind for a while that we knew we were getting one of these two players, and we were really comfortable with that,” Rangers general manager Jeff Gorton said. “By all accounts, they were really close in a lot of ways. Talent level really high.

“We felt like the last few days this was going to happen and this was the player we were going to get. So you didn’t see me jump up and down at the table that way. But inside, we’re excited. We’ve never taken a pick this high. There are a lot of good things happening, and this is another thing.”

Kakko stands 6-foot-2 and is 200 pounds, and was a standout while playing with men at the World Championships last month in Slovakia, when he scored six goals in 10 games while his team won the gold medal. It finished a 13-month stretch when Kakko won gold at the Under-18 World Championship, the World Junior Championship — when he scored the tournament-winning goal — and then the World Championship.

“I think it helped me very much, to play against the best players in the world,” Kakko said. “In the NHL, there are the same players. So I think I can play there next season.”

Still learning the language, Kakko was able to say, “Of course it was dream to be No. 1. But every team is a good team, so I’m happy.”

He also had a very succinct and powerful answer to if he wants to prove the Devils wrong.

“Yeah,” he said with a shake of his head.

For all of the excitement the Rangers were feeling in getting a player like Kakko, they were trying to at least partially temper the expectations. Despite his ability to play along the walls, and play physical, and make plays in and around the net, they don’t want to just hand him a spot on the roster of a team that is trying to take a big step forward this season in their difficult rebuilding process.

“Don’t forget, he’s young. Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves,” Davidson said, before adding his signature candidness. “I’m trying to talk myself into that one also. I’m just telling you the truth.”

Kakko said he has never been to New York City, but he did hear it is “a nice city. Little bigger than Turku,” which is where he played in Finland with a population of 186,756. He will get a chance to see it at some point during Rangers prospect camp, starting Monday.

That’s when it might sink in that Kakko is a Ranger, while Hughes plies his trade across the river for an easy constant comparison.

“It’s going to be real interesting to see how this all matures along the way,” Davidson said. “It’s going to be fun.”