July is for three things: barbecues, beaches, and ranking the top twenty five players under twenty five years old in the Tampa Bay Lightning organization.
Every year here at Raw Charge, we get you updated on the Bolts youth movement. We start by ranking the best 25 players under age 25, and then we bring you profiles on all 25 of those players individually. This year, we’re opening up the rankings to readers directly. Just like we did with the player grades after the season, you can submit your own rankings and we’ll compile those along with our staff and share the results starting next week.
The ranking tool is available here:
Raw Charge Top 25 Under 25 Ranking Tool
It’s a simple drag and drop tool but feel free to ask questions (or argue about rankings) in the comments here.
If you’re wondering how the rankings went last year, here they are.
2017 Raw Charge Top 25 Under 25
| Player (Age) | Raw Charge Rank |
|---|---|
| Nikita Kucherov (Age: 24) | 1 |
| Andrei Vasilevskiy (Age: 22) | 2 |
| Brayden Point (Age: 21) | 3 |
| Vladislav Namestnikov (24) | 4 |
| Mikhail Sergachev (Age: 19) | 5 |
| Slater Koekkoek (Age: 23) | 6 |
| Brett Howden (Age: 19) | 7 |
| Matthew Peca (Age: 24) | 8 |
| Anthony Cirelli (Age: 19) | 9 |
| Adam Erne (Age: 22) | 10 |
| Mitchell Stephens (Age: 20) | 11 |
| Jake Dotchin (Age: 23) | 12 |
| Taylor Raddysh (Age: 19) | 13 |
| Mathieu Joseph (Age: 20) | 14 |
| Dennis Yan (Age: 20) | 15 |
| Cedric Paquette (Age: 23) | 16 |
| Cal Foote (Age: 18) | 17 |
| Boris Katchouk (Age: 19) | 18 |
| Dominik Masin (Age: 21) | 19 |
| Daniel Walcott (Age: 23) | 20 |
| Connor Ingram (Age: 20) | 21 |
| Alexey Lipanov (Age: 17) | 22 |
| Matt Spencer (Age: 20) | 23 |
| Libor Hajek (Age: 19) | 24 |
| Erik Cernak (Age: 20) | 25 |
There will be some big changes this year. Nikita Kucherov is no longer eligible. Vlad Namestnkiov, Brett Howden, Libor Hajek, and Matt Peca are all no longer in the organization.
Andrei Vasilevskiy, Brayden Point, Mikhail Sergachev, and Cal Foote will now occupy the top of most lists. Newcomer Alex Barré-Boulet is already making a case to be ranked highly even though he has only been with the organization for a few months.
The more people respond, the more fun this will be so we encourage you to submit a ranking. You don’t have to be an expert. Just go based on what you’ve read in Seldo’s pipeline reports and use Matt’s notes from development camp to help you if needed.
We’ll keep the ranker available until the end of the day on Saturday and our write-ups will start next week. This is one of the most fun series we do all year so click that link and get started.
