As the T25U25 ends-ish for another year, we all land right where we expected to, and right where we will next season as well.

Our Week 5 Recap

#5: Nick Robertson

Top 25 Under 25: Nick Robertson bursts onto the scene at #5

Nick Robertson is a clever, sneaky, bold player. He’s got lightning-quick hands and can play hockey at a very high tempo. Robertson is incredibly creative and he knows how to use that to maintain possession and create good scoring opportunities for his team. With the way hockey’s been trending for years now, those two focal points are exactly what you want to see in a prospect.

#4: Rasmus Sandin

Top 25 Under 25: Rasmus Sandin is still the Leafs top prospect at #4

We have a consensus that his floor is a league-average defenceman, but his ceiling is what we all want to know but don’t. Are we looking at a defenceman who could make it up to the top pairing playing big minutes, or a versatile tool on the second pairing who can participate in special teams? No one appears willing to gamble and call that ceiling yet, which you probably can’t for a 19 year-old defenceman anyway.

#3: William Nylander

Top 25 Under 25: William Nylander is 3rd on our list, 1st in my heart

For the last time, we debate the Nylander vs Marner question. Well, not seldo. He had a different argument to make:

I made a mistake with my voting in the Top 25. As you’ll see below in the voting table I voted William Nylander #2 overall. I think I made a mistake.

I should have voted him #1.

#2: Mitch Marner

Top 25 Under 25: Mitch Marner is #2

#1 Auston Matthews

T25U25: Auston Matthews Reigns At #1

Community Vote for Week 5

#5: Kasperi Kapanen

Weighted Average Ranking: 5.63
Total Rankings: 257 (256 in top 25)

#4: Rasmus Sandin

Weighted Average Ranking: 5.10
Total Rankings: 257 (256)

#3: William Nylander

Weighted Average Ranking: 3.07
Total Rankings: 258 (257)

#2: Mitch Marner

Weighted Average Ranking: 2.80
Total Rankings: 258 (257)

#1: Auston Matthews

Weighted Average Ranking: 1.37
Total Rankings: 258 (257)

And that’s your final rankings. To give you the hard numbers on the top three, eight people ranked Matthews second, and two had him third. The other votes could be errors, so I’m ignoring them. That’s a surprising 10 people, though.

Two people ranked Marner first, 163 had him second, 79 had him third, six had him fourth, and the there’s one vote at fifth, eighth, 12th, 13th and then a scatter at the end of the list. We can tell from all the data is one person who did the list upside down, but the rest are unexplainable other than calling them contract-related votes.

For Nylander, two people ranked him first, 76 had him second and 163 had him third. Eight had him fourth and one each came it at fifth and sixth. There’s also one vote at ninth, 10th, 11th, 15th and 16th. Some of those might be errors, but some of them are from true believers in the soft perimeter player meme.

So Marner and Nylander had an identical number of votes at their final positions, and they both got the same number of first-place votes and the same number of lower-ranked votes.

The Sandin votes were exactly what we all would have expected once we saw that not many people rated Robertson very high. He’s no higher than fourth, except for two stray votes at second and third, but he’s got a considerable number of votes at fifth, sixth and seventh.

Kasperi Kapanen is the player with a wide spread in ranking, just like our vote had him last week. Your choices of who to rank sixth, fifth and fourth were only subtly different than ours.

Your full list in order is:

  1. Auston Matthews 1.37
  2. Mitch Marner 2.80
  3. William Nylander 3.07
  4. Rasmus Sandin 5.10
  5. Kasperi Kapanen 5.63
  6. Nicholas Robertson 6.65
  7. Travis Dermott 7.20
  8. Timothy Liljegren 8.01
  9. Pierre Engvall 9.30
  10. Egor Korshkov 13.28
  11. Adam Brooks 13.64
  12. Mikhail Abramov 15.41
  13. Semyon Der-Arguchintsev 15.91
  14. Joseph Woll 16.26
  15. Denis Malgin 16.46
  16. Nicholas Abruzzese 17.70
  17. Jeremy Bracco 18.61
  18. 2020 2nd-round pick 18.74
  19. Mikko Kokkonen 18.78
  20. Mac Hollowell 19.80
  21. Ian Scott 20.22
  22. Jesper Lindgren 20.97
  23. Joseph Duszak 21.05
  24. Filip Kral 23.31
  25. Pontus Holmberg 23.53

And that’s our last Community Vote Recap for this year. Let’s hope we’re all saying: Wow, I ranked him too low a lot in coming years.

Top 25 Under 25