Following Neil Greenberg's departure, I have been tasked with Insider's annual top 25 under 25 rankings. My methods are not entirely the same as Neil's, so an explanation of my process is included, and a "previous ranking" line for each player didn't seem appropriate.
While statistics are a significant part of any player evaluation process, this is an overall talent evaluation. One major change from previous versions is that skills-based analysis went into a large part of building this list. This ranking does not look at contract status (which would make the youngest players more valuable), and is done in a world where a team keeps a player through his retirement with the current and future value in mind. Forwards of equivalent talent to defensemen are given the edge, as they have a bigger impact on even-strength team performance.
Using a strict cutoff of 25 players, some very good young players had to be omitted. Calgary's T.J. Brodie, Carolina's Jeff Skinner, Columbus' Ryan Murray, Edmonton's Nail Yakupov, San Jose's Tomas Hertl, Washington's John Carlson and Winnipeg's Evander Kane were among the many big names who were tough to cut. A lot of established quality NHLers were cut based on my balancing of potential versus established play -- another significant change from Greenberg's versions of these rankings.
We use the NHL's cutoff for draft prospects to determine the cutoff date for purposes of this ranking, which is Sept. 15. Thus, Alex Killorn -- who turned 25 on Sept. 14 -- is ineligible. All ages as mentioned in this article are current as of Sept. 15. Each player is listed with his age and basic stats, as well as average ice time, relative Corsi and where he ranks on his team in quality of competition.
Here are the top 25 players in the NHL under the age of 25: