The 2019 Top 25 Maple Leafs Under 25 preview special

They say the basics of reporting come from the five W’s:

Who is the subject?

What is happening?

Where is this happening?

When is it happening?

Why is it happening?

I’m here to answer these questions for you about this year’s Top 25 Under 25 series.

What is happening?

If you’ve been around Pension Plan Puppets: A Toronto Maple Leafs Community for a few years you’ll know that each year we take some time and rank the Top 25 Toronto Maple Leafs that are under 25 years of age.

Where is this happening?

It’s all going own right here at PensionPlanPuppets.com, and all stories related to the series can be found under the Top 25 tag.

There have already been a few stories out, exhibition games if you will, in the lead up to the big reveal.

Related

Visualizing the T25U25 eligible players
Justin Brazeau: The Marlies’ Big Project
T25U25: Our History of Horrifying Mistakes
The 2019 Top 25 Under 25 Community Vote

Why is this happening?

Well, to be honest, it’s great summer content. Free agency has passed us by, most of the trades have taken place, and everyone’s off for a month of vacation before the pre-season work begins.

If we didn’t have this series the site would collapse under the weight of summer boredom and Mitchell Marner contract speculation.

Also, it can be a lot of fun to argue about prospects that will probably never see the NHL, and learn about recent draft picks and be reminded about guys you forgot. Remember Fabrice Herzog? I didn’t think so.

Who are the subjects?

There are 49 players eligible for the Top 25 this year. All players had to be under 25 as of July 1st, 2019 and their NHL rights controlled by the Maple Leafs. This does exclude any player who signed an AHL/ECHL contract as a free agent, since they are still technically NHL free agents.

The players on the list have been drafted by the Maple Leafs, acquired in a trade, or signed as free agents to NHL contracts:

2019 T25U25 Eligible Players

Who’s doing the voting?

This year we have seventeen voters and to help keep the hive mind at bay, half of them aren’t writers here.

El Seldo: That’s me! I’ve been with PPP for a long time; I started commenting on the first T25 and now I’m the one begging people to get their votes in.

KatyaKnappe: Our glorious Managing Editor. The Shanahan with the Shanappplan. The one who reminds me of the players I left off the list.

Arvind: Arvind is one of those writers who prefers quality over quantity, only showing us his best work. He’s also one half of the Back to Excited team.

Acting the Fulemin: A walking example to not tie your blogger name to a specific player, he’s the other half of back to excited and a man of many, many, many, words. None of those words explain why I’m banned from Back to Excited, but whatever, it’s fine.

Omar: Omar bails me out of having to write a lot of words when doing recaps with his awesome GIF making.

Hardev: He follows me from blog to blog, just adores me. One of our Marlies experts and you can also find him at Mile High Hockey and Raw Charge.

Species1967: Another Marlies expert, he also travels to exotic locales like Brampton to give us some good ECHL coverage every once in a while. He makes sure the wheels stay greased and the FTB schedule is filled.

Brigstew: You know him, he’s the one who can’t use ‘z’ to skip comments properly.

Kevin Papetti: He’s abandoned us for Maple Leafs Hot Stove, but that’s fine. We’re not that mad.

After we got the past voters on the list, we decided to open things up and invite some others into the fold.

rahef: When it was asked who should we invite to participate in the main list, Rahef was one of first names brought up. A good, fun, twitter follow.

Emily Jo: A Seattle based hockey fan who enjoys dogs and analytics. If you like how she voted, check out NHLtoSeattle.com and if you don’t, then just move on.

Will Scouch: Usually busy offering great prospects coverage at Scouching.com, Will has great insights into the players we demand turn into superstars, even if the news isn’t good.

The Real Gud Pros: A great Maple Leafs focused podcast, the Pros - Helen, Mel, and J will be picking out their favourites.

Then, we decided to have a crossover episode with Raptors HQ to have some of that championship luck rub off on the Leafs.

Daniel Hackett: Staff writer over at Raptors HQ. He's the one to go to for cap and stats info.

Gabe Nisker: A contributor at Raptors HQ. You can also find him at McGill University helping to run the McGill Tribune.

When is this happening?

As I said, next week. Overall the whole series will run from July 22nd to August 30th; ending as usual before training camp begins. Posts go up Monday to Friday with Saturdays reserved for revealing the community vote. Go outside or something on Sundays.

Finally, if you haven’t voted in the Community Vote, please do so. It’s great to have so much interaction with this series.