MONTREAL — When Jarmo Kekalainen was named general manager of the Columbus Blue Jackets this week, Montreal reporters went to Lars Eller for some first-hand impressions of the National Hockey League’s first European-born GM.

When asked about Kekalainen’s philosophy, Eller elicited laughter when he replied: “Drafting good players?”

Eller was one of three players Kekalainen selected for the St. Louis Blues in the first round of the 2008 draft. The others were David Perron and defenceman Ian Cole. All three are gainfully employed in the NHL and are among a dozen players, including eight first-rounders, drafted during Kekalainen’s tenure as the Blues’ director of scouting.

“He’s going to have a little more power and, along with John Davidson, who was in St. Louis, he’ll be pulling a lot of strings and the two of them working together are going to do the same thing they did in St. Louis,” Eller said. “(In June), they have three first-round picks and he’ll do something with that.”

Davidson, who took over as president of the sad-sack Blue Jackets in the off-season, ended Scott Howson’s six-year tenure as GM because Howson didn’t do much with his draft picks.

Much has been made of Kekalainen’s European pedigree, but as Davidson pointed out: “Jarmo is very intelligent about hockey worldwide, not only in Europe, but in North America.”

Before hooking up with Davidson in St. Louis, Kekalainen worked as director of player personnel with the Ottawa Senators and was there when the team drafted the likes of Chris Phillips, Marian Hossa and Jason Spezza.

While Kekalainen’s greatest strength is his ability to evaluate talent, he has acquired some management experience in Europe. He was GM of HIFK when it won the Finnish League title in 1998 and was most recently GM of Jokerit, which is currently in first place in Finland.

Kekalainen’s greatest challenge will be to bring himself up to date on the crop of prospects for the June draft. He has been away from North America since 2010, but his track record indicates he’ll make good use of those three first-round picks.

phickey@montrealgazette.com">phickey@montrealgazette.com

Twitter.com@zababes1