Five Thoughts for Top 25 Under 25 for Friday
The biggest questions and controversies in this year's T25U25
We've begun the Top 25 Under 25 for 2024, and, as always, there are thoughts. Since we've got some time in the summer, I decided to go a little more in depth on the things that particularly tickled my brain this time around.
1. Who's at the bottom?
It felt to me like, this year even more than most, I didn't know the guys I was rating at the bottom. I did quite a bit of research to learn about Blake Montgomery, Owen Beckner, Hoyt Stanley, Filip Nordberg, Jake Chiasson... Steve Staios has done such a thorough job of overturning this team's prospect base, I don't recognize a lot of the names. Starting at about 19, I started putting guys I couldn't have named before I started. I'm fascinated by the staff results, and even more by the reader results, because I'm curious what the fandom thinks about some of these guys lower on the list. I stumbled across our list from during the 2012 lockout, and we had Troy Rutkowski at #24, so most of these guys at the bottom won't ever make the NHL. But, at the same time, Jean-Gabriel Pageau was #17, and he would go on to establish himself as a solid NHLer, so sometimes these guys who show promise at the bottom end up being better than projected.
2. Pedigree
Does draft pedigree matter? What about NHL lineage? We can dress up this question, but really, it's the Tyler Boucher question. I won't spoil the rankings, but I will say the readers had Boucher quite a bit higher than the staff. That does make me wonder, is it that the staff are too down on him? Or is it that being a 10th-overall pick and the son of an NHLer gets you some degree of leeway for disappointing, injury-riddled seasons? I'll say I didn't rank Boucher in my top 25; I don't think he'll get anything more than a couple NHL games in his career. We've seen draft pedigree earn a guy like Jared Cowen a lot more opportunities than he deserved. It makes sense that in something that isn't worth millions of dollars, like a glorified hype ranking, we'd see this happen even more.
3. NHL experience
Some guys like Zack Ostapchuk, Angus Crookshank, or Maxence Guénette got NHL looks last season. That undoubtedly boosted their ranking, but how much? Can we definitively say that Crookshank has more NHL potential than Cole Reinhardt? Probably not, but the fact that we saw the former in the NHL last year definitely has a psychological effect. What's interesting is that this probably doesn't help a guy like Jan Jenik, who has 22 NHL games across 4 seasons with the Coyotes, but because we as Sens fans don't remember them, it doesn't factor into our opinions. At the same time though, didn't Crookshank and Ostapchuk get their callups because of their success in the AHL? I will say that I probably gave both a slightly more favourable ranking that I would've if they'd put up the same AHL numbers but hadn't got an NHL callup.
4. Goalies
The expression is that goalies are like golf balls, you can never have too many spares. Goalies are an essential part of every NHL team (just ask the 2023-24 Sens). However, goalies are also really hard to project. They're also really hard to predict: many goalies have had one or two great NHL seasons and been decidedly mediocre the rest of their career. So how do we rank goalies in these rankings? I will say that I'm not confident in the NHL future of Mads Søgaard; he's looked good in the AHL and not good at all in the NHL. That being said, he is the best goalie prospect in the system, so he deserves to be higher than the others. But does being the best at an essential position earn him a top-10 ranking? I always tend to rank many goalies on these lists because I imagine many will end up getting an NHL opportunity and will need to stand strong. But I also tend to rank them low because their future is so unpredictable.
5. Who's at the top?
The big question: who's #1 under 25? There's three obvious candidates: the most offensively skilled of the three (Stützle), the #1 defenceman (Sanderson), and the captain, heart, and goal-driver of this team (Tkachuk). You could make a strong case for all three. Stüzle may be the most talented, but he's probably not the most valuable. A guy like Tkachuk wins you championships, a guy who wears his heart on his sleeve every game. But then, how can you win without a #1 defenceman? (Counterpoint: who was the Panthers' #1 defenceman these playoffs?) And I'm always curious to see if staff and reader opinions differ here; the stereotype is that Tkachuk would appeal more to the readership than the staff, but did this bear out in the voting? And would anyone go out of their way to vote down the player they didn't want at the top? (Honourable mention to the reader a decade ago who put Cody Ceci #1, Erik Karlsson #25, and left the rest of their ballot blank; their ballot was disqualified for being incomplete, but I respected the hustle.)
How did you go about resolving these things on your own ballot? Let us know in the comments!
