It’s mid-August, the Chicagoland area is about to be moved roughly three or four inches from the surface of the sun and hockey that matters remains several weeks away on the calendar …
… so that means it’s time for Second City Hockey’s annual Top 25 Under 25 rankings!
The methodology has remained the same, with the four SCH staffers ranking the prospects on individual ballots which were then compiled into a Top 25 with a handful of honorable mentions at the end. Before we dive into the slight differences in presentation for this summer’s T25U25 list, a quick reminder of the 2022 rankings:
Players in bold remained in consideration for the 2023 rankings, with plenty of familiar names sitting atop last year’s list:
- C Frank Nazar
- LW Lukas Reichel
- D Kevin Korchinski
- RW Philipp Kurashev
- RW Taylor Raddysh (turned 25 in February)
- D Ian Mitchell (traded to BOS)
- G Drew Commesso
- D Wyatt Kaiser
- D Alex Vlasic
- G Arvid Soderblom
- D Alec Regula (traded to BOS)
- D Isaak Phillips
- C Jalen Luypen
- D Sam Rinzel
- D Nolan Allan
- C Colton Dach
- LW Michal Teply
- D Jakub Galvas (left organization)
- LW Landon Slaggert
- D Ethan del Mastro
- RW Ryder Rolston
- RW MacKenzie Entwistle
- C Paul Ludwinski
- D Nicolas Beaudin (traded to MTL)
- RW Boris Katchouk (turned 25 in June)
Honorable Mentions: C Josiah Slavin (traded to ANA), C Jacob Wise (left organization), RW Mike Hardman
With the way the Blackhawks have been stockpiling players in the last few years, though, the prospect room is borderline overcrowded in Chicago. In the 2023 NHL Draft, the Blackhawks had seven selections in the first three rounds after making eight selections in the first three rounds of the 2022 draft. There’s an obvious new name atop the list now, but the margins between what other prospects have accomplished and have as their potential dwindled away to near nothing around the time the list hit double digits. Therefore, we’re going to present the rankings a little differently this time around.
There will be a Top 10, as per usual, but the remaining 15 prospects will be organized into groups of three: 11-15, 16-20 and 21-25. A post with honorable mention will kick things off this week, and we’ll work up to the No. 1 spot from there, which should bridge the rest of the offseason gap between now and the preseason.
This was, easily, the most difficult T25U25 list to put together in recent memory, and the hope here is that it translates to on-ice success in the near future, because it feels like there are simply too many talented players in the organization right now for this to go anywhere but up as the years unfold.