For the 2017 version of the T25U25 for the Maple Leafs, we had 12 voters who chose from 46 eligible players.

Demographics

We teased you with this chart prior to the release of out list:

While Dmytro Timashov should likely be in the other blue and yellow segment, you can see that the diversity of the prospect pool is still good.

The average age of the T25 is 21, and the top 13 is just very slightly higher.  Last year the top half was a bit older than the whole group.

The 2016 T25U25 by the numbers

There are three players who are 24 and three who are 18 (as of when the list was collated in early July).

The Players

There are 15 forwards, 9 defencemen and two goalies.  (There was a tie, that’s why that adds up to 26.)

Of the forwards, there are four you can legitimately call centres for at least most of their career.

Of the defenders, three are right-shooters.

The Voting

There was more consensus this year at the top end, and two players had unanimous rankings: Auston Matthews and Morgan Rielly.

Below Rielly’s place at number four, the next three votes were awarded to only four different players by our voters. Spot number 8 is more chaotic, and below that is where the consensus totally unravels.

However, while there might have been disagreement over where to rank players, who to rank was largely unanimous.  The top 19 all received a vote from all twelve voters. One other player did as well and four received 11 votes.

There were 17 players who received no votes.

Top 25 Under 25: No love for the bottom half of the draw

The top nine ranked players had a spread in votes of zero to four places.  The first disputed ranking was Josh Leivo at 10, and then the spread tightens up again.  Once you get to Jeremy Bracco at number 13, the spread is wider, reaching as high as 13 places from high to low for Nikita Soshnikov.  It’s possible to see those rankings from 13 to 24 as very close together.

Joseph Woll is the outlier at the bottom of the list. He received 10 votes, all between 23 and 25.

Looking at average votes shows the places where the drops in our evaluations were the largest.  From one through nine, or Matthews to Connor Carrick, the change in average vote is less than two, with the largest drop from Rielly to Kapanen.

The drop from Carrick to Josh Leivo is over three.  This is the biggest gap on the list until you get to the bottom few where players had fewer overall votes.  For the rest of the list to Eemeli Räsänen at 23, the gap is always less than 2.

The Wrong Answers

There’s going to be some! I’m mentally writing my mea culpa on Andreas Borgman already.  Yegor Korshkov might surprise this season too.  But no one saw Carl Grundström coming last year a few weeks after he was drafted, so there will be someone we got wrong.

Top 25 Under 25