2019 Pensburgh Top 25 Under 25: The Graduates and Departed

The 2018-19 Pittsburgh Penguins season was one of incredible turnover, with seven players from the opening night lineup traded during the season, and another in Tanner Pearson traded for and back out as well.

The young players who make up the organization had just as much turnover too. In fact, from our 2018 Pensburgh Top 25 Under 25 list (catch up with it here) we have an astounding 10 players that will not be around for the 2019 list.

Some of this involves aging out — previous list mainstays like Matt Murray, Teddy Blueger and Dominik Simon for instance are no longer eligible based on age, as are some others like Juuso Riikola and Adam Johnson.

But many others have been traded, waived or otherwise moved on. From Tobias Lindberg to Olli Maatta there’s a lot of variance in how important the young player has been to the organization, but there’s no overlooking just how much activity there’s been with an incredible amount of churn among not just the NHL roster but for young players as well.

For many years this list has felt very similar, but this year will certainly be a departure. It will be weird making a list without players like Murray and Maatta and Blueger who have been on it since the very beginning of our Pensburgh list!

But with change comes growth. The Pens have added a first round pick in 2019 in Sam Poulin. They’ve also traded for 2017-first round pick Pierre-Olivier Joseph. Those are two of the best young prospects and pedigrees to be in the organization literally in years, a sad statement of a contender more worried about trying to add banners to the rafters than young players for the future.

Now, as we turn to our 2019 list, let’s first look back at the players from 2018 no longer with us for the Top 25 Under 25 exercise:

With those salutes made to the departed, we turn our attention now to the list of eligible players for the soon-to-be-released 2019 Pensburgh Top 25 Under 25.

As a refresher, it doesn’t matter if a player is an NHL All-Star or an unsigned CHL free agent, a standard we hold like all the other SB Nation blogs that conduct these lists. This list was going vaguely off a 10/1/1994 or earlier birthdate for eligibility, an arbitrarily chosen date. (Thus, Jake Guentzel is eligible for one more year and a guy like Simon who turns 25 next month is not).

This list can also mean different things to different people, and there’s not necessarily a right or wrong way to go about it. How do you value an 18-year old top prospect but not a professional like Poulin against an older player with a more limited upside but better chance of contributing sooner like a Sam Lafferty? It’s not easy. Technically I try to think of it like “OK, if there was a trade to be made, which has more value?” and go from there.

But there are certainly many different schools of thoughts, as well as opinions on the caliber and future of players. Sometimes they’re right, sometimes they’re wrong. In hockey, as the word indicates prospects are not always sure things. Occasionally players develop more than expected. Then again, occasionally some high picks with believed to be bright futures never get on track.

You never know what could happen, but this is only a snapshot of this moment in time. Thus how younger players (even with potentially higher ceilings) can be thought of right now as less-useful than players with lower variances that are more known for what they actually can contribute and immediately.

I included everyone under NHL contracts or whose rights are currently held by the Pens organization. This year it’s only a list of 32 players — and really with all draft picks you would think 7 rounds * 7 years of players ages 18-24 and that = 49. .

So it goes to show how shallow Pittsburgh’s system is due to all the trades of picks made. Also, compared to other organization’s, it’s not an extremely talented group of youngsters either. Some have promise and potential, but it’s hardly some of the locks that many other teams have built up.