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Top 4 Under 24 - Who has the best young core in the league

Top 4 Under 24?

  • TOR

    Votes: 19 70.4%
  • EDM

    Votes: 6 22.2%
  • WPG

    Votes: 1 3.7%
  • ARZ

    Votes: 1 3.7%
  • TAM

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Others ...

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    27
Montreal?

Chuck
Lehkonen
Beaulieu
Sergachev


sweet

Galchenyuk
Gallagher
Sergachev
???

We lack that 4th option as I don't think Beaulieu, Lehkonen, Juulsen, etc... are all much more borderline options.
 
Depends on if you think Connor-Petan-Morrisey is better than Brown-Soshnikov-Carrick, if we're talking about just NHL kids right now, and by how much. Because our top 4 has been a lot better than their top 4 so far....it would need to be a pretty wide gulf between 5-6-7 to make much of a difference.

More of a comparison to Kapanen-Brown-Bracco-timashov-Neislon/Carrick/Dermott...ok the Leafs are deeper.
 
McDavid is unquestionably the best player, but the question isn't who has the best player. Otherwise Washington would have a lot more cups.
 
What did you expect? It's a Leafs board.

McDavid wins obviously, but the Leafs are a clear 2nd place here.
That is actually another interesting discussion.

We can talk about who's the best young player in the NHL and that will be a 2 sec discussion ... but then does having the best player automatically means you have the best core?

There are plenty of examples where a dominating player never wins the cup - but probably none more apparent than Lindros, who was by far the most dominating player in his era, and Lindros made an immediate and significant impact to the Flyers immediately. However, he never won the cup, and the Flyers were not even a cup fav in those days. They were a contender, but not a cup fav. Yes, you can talk about goaltending, but it shows having the best player doens't guarantee you have the best team.
 
More of a comparison to Kapanen-Brown-Bracco-timashov-Neislon/Carrick/Dermott...ok the Leafs are deeper.

Yeah, I was just going with what was currently in the NHL. Kind of hard to call something a core piece if it's not in the show.
 
Is McDavid more dominating now than Lindros was in his era?

The Flyers sure didn't have the best core.

Well, Lindros-LeClair-Brind'Amour was a pretty solid core they had, but yeah, you obviously need to build more than that to win a cup. But we're also not talking about a full team here - we're looking at the best top-4, in which case one player can make a bigger difference. I mean, if you want to go back to which team had the best core in those late 90s year, Philly would definitely be up there basically because of Lindros. Just because they didn't win a cup doesn't mean that their core sucked.

If you're talking about pure top-4 kids, I think it's very hard to argue against McDavid, especially when it's not like the rest of their group is full of chumps. Draisatl is looking like a pretty solid player in his own right, and Puljujarvi was still a very high pick this year, although obviously hasn't shown himself yet in the NHL. If he's the next Yakupov, then yeah, obviously that drops their core down, but still too early to judge on him.

The fact that you can even come close to them is a huge testament to the talent of your kids. And the fact that you've got a bunch of kids that are already playing at 60+ point paces this early in their careers is certainly huge. But I still have a hard time arguing against the guy who at 19 is 5 points ahead of second place in the NHL in points.
 
Personally I think 23 is the start of prime, not young.

18-22 young
23-27 upswing
28-32 downswing
33-37 old
 
Rookie Scoring 2016 (to date)


1. Patrik Laine WPG R 25 13 6 19
2. Mitchell Marner TOR C 22 7 12 19
3. Auston Matthews TOR C 22 10 8 18
4. William Nylander TOR C 21 6 10 16

Yea. Game, set and match?

Where is the argument? And Laine with 3 more games played.
 
Think we have Winnipeg cleanly beat and our 4 might be better than Edmonton's but if you wanna say they take it because McDavid I'm perfectly fine with that.

Regardless, pretty clear how good the Big 3 is for us.
 
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