DRW204
Registered User
- Dec 26, 2010
- 23,082
- 28,586
Goalies I'm kind of not surprised.I'm not quite curious enough about this to do some deep dive into it, but as I was sitting here feeling old because my joints ache because it's either too humid or not humid enough outside, I saw someone post about yet another highly touted youngster from a few years back signing a minimum wage contract, and that got me thinking.
Are we in a lull with regards to new talent entering the league?
In the top 50 point producers last season, 2 players were born after 1999. Meaning last year, we had barely any players ages 18-24 that were big difference makers in that regard. The best goalies in the league (Helle, Shesterkin, Sorokin, Saros, Vasilevksy? Bob?) are all in their upper 20s or older. You could argue that the top D-men are younger, but other than that, there isn't much infusion of young superb talent lately.
You can point to the Jets as a prime example, where we haven't inserted much at all since arguably 2017, 7 years ago. But I don't think we're a big outlier.
I'd say fwds is a bit surprising though.
However the influx of talent in the mid 2010s with McDavid, Marner, Drai, Tkachuk, Aho, Kaprizov, Rantanen, Pastrnak, Connor etc was perhaps a tad abnormal? 2015 ofc was a insane draft year. Don't think any drafts will compete with that. Then consider 2014 and 2016s top end
I'd be interested seeing how many players from each draft class among the top 50.