2019 Blackhawks Top 25 Under 25: Eligible players

Second City Hockey will begin its 2019-20 preseason Top 25 Under 25 rankings series with three introductory articles prior to opening voting at 5 p.m. Monday, July 29. There will be a staff and community ranking system, with profiles based on rankings starting to roll out Monday, Aug. 5.

The Blackhawks under-25 player pool is starting to turn around with some top-end talent. We’ve already touched on the six players that have graduated or departed from Second City Hockey’s 2018-19 mid-season Top 25 Under 25 rankings, so we’ll focus on the eligible players for the upcoming list. The age cutoff is Oct. 1, 2019.

There are six spots up for grabs, and some new faces will push the lower tier players out. The Blackhawks have added 15 players to the eligibility pool: Alexander Nylander (21), Reese Johnson (21), Dmitri Osipov (22), Aleksi Saarela (22), Chase Marchand (23), John Quenneville (23), Dominik Kubalik (24), Dylan McLaughlin (24), Nick Moutrey (24) and six more from the 2019 NHL draft.

Nylander and Quenneville were ranked Nos. 11 and 12, respectively, last August by SB Nation’s Sabres and Devils team sites. Kubalik was unranked by the Kings site and the Hurricanes site does not conduct a T25U25 series. Those rankings are reflected below as are players’ ages at the cutoff date.

2019 Blackhawks T25U25: Eligible players