When I’m kicking around ideas with some of my hockey friends, something we bring up all the time is how many good young players there are in the league right now. It seems like every single team in the league has a guy that has the potential to score 40 goals or become a #1 defenseman—and just about all of those guys are 22 or younger. But something that comes up often is: “Where are the best young players?”
In the spirit of that conversation, here’s a list of what a 22 and Under team would look like for the Eastern and Western Conferences. We selected rosters of 20 players (with 2 reserves) for each conference. The players have to be in the NHL right now—and we’re talking about the players right now. Who are the players that you’d take in a game TOMORROW. Not in a game in a year, not a game in 5 years—a game tomorrow. (i.e. I’m sure there are defensemen from the 2008 draft that would be able to beat out Keith Yandle) but as it stands today—its just potential.
Here’s what we came up with! Let’s see if it looks anything like your team. And of these teams, who do you think would win?
Western Conference Forwards
Jonathan Towes (‘06) – Anze Kopitar (‘05) – Patrick Kane (‘07)
Bobby Ryan (‘05) – Devin Setoguchi (‘05) – Paul Stastny (‘05)
TJ Oshie (‘05) – James Neal (‘05) – Ryan O’Reilly (‘09)
Patrik Berglund (‘06) – Derick Brassard (‘06) – Andrew Cogliano (‘05)
Reserves:
David Perron (‘07)
Sam Gagner (‘07)
Western Conference Defensemen
Erik Johnson (‘06) – Drew Doughty (‘08)
Kris Russell (‘05) – Jack Johnson (‘05)
Marc-Edouward Vlasic (‘05) – Keith Yandle (‘05)
Western Conference Goaltenders
Steve Mason (‘06)
Jonathan Quick (‘05)
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Eastern Conference Forwards
Sidney Crosby (‘05) – Steven Stamkos (‘08) – Phil Kessel (‘06)
Jordan Stall (‘06) – Claude Giroux (‘06) – John Tavares (‘09)
Nicklas Backstrom (‘06) – Bryan Little (‘06) – Milan Lucic (‘06)
Kyle Okposo (‘06) – Michael Frolik (‘06) – James Van Riemskyk (‘07)
Reserve:
Evander Kane (‘09)
Eastern Conference Defensemen
Zach Bogosian (‘08) – Marc Staal (‘05)
Luke Schenn (‘08) – Kris Letang (‘05)
Tyler Myers (‘08) – Michael Del Zotto (‘08)
Reserve:
Victor Hedman (‘09)
Eastern Conference Goaltenders
Carey Price (‘05)
Simeon Varlamov (‘06)
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Five quick explainations and observations:
1. Simeon Varlamov barely edged out Ondrej Pavelec for the 2nd spot in the East in goal because of his performance in the playoffs last year. They both have relatively small sample sizes, so I went with the guy that has done it in the playoffs.
2. As you can tell, defensemen and goaltenders take a lot longer to develop. That being said, the 2008 draft was a great one for blueliners.
3. Going into this project, I was under the impression that the West had a lot more young defensemen than they actually do. Maybe they’re older than I thought or maybe there aren’t as many—but the West doesn’t have NEARLY the amount of quality defensemen that you’d think they do.
4. Andrew Cogliano narrowly makes it over Sam Gagner because of his speed and his work on the penalty kill.
5. There is much more forward depth in the Western Conference. Both of the reserves in the West would have made the team in the East. Hell, Jakub Voracek and Matt Duchene would probably have made it as well.
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So that leaves the original question: who wins this game?
Matt Reitz is the Editor-In-Chief here at ViewFromMySeats.com and former NHL Writer for ProHockeyTalk on NBCSports. When he’s not shoving a mic in the face of NHLers or explaining why home teams should wear white, he’s usually trying to figure out what song to play next on his iPod. It’s a never-ending job.
