We’ve reached the excruciatingly quiet part of the off-season, so it’s time for one of my favorite features here: the Top 25 Under 25.
A reminder for how it works: There are 45 players in the Columbus Blue Jackets organization (either under contract or under team control) who will be under 25 as of opening day in October. This is up from 40 candidates last year, and 38 in 2021. For reference, I used the Elite Prospects depth chart page, and I recommend you browse that if you want to look up more about each player. For quick reference, I have included each player’s birth year and position in the form.
It is up to each reader to determine how you rank the players. My suggestion is you consider the impact you expect each player to have on the Blue Jackets’ roster going forward. That can be this year, or three years from now. If you were building the franchise from scratch, which of these players would be your building blocks?
Six players from last year’s pool have either aged out or had their rights expire without being signed. This includes the overwhelming #1 last year, Patrik Laine. We’ll see who can move up from last year, but I have a feeling one of the new additions listed below may be a popular pick this time around…
Aged out:
#1 Patrik Laine
#11 Andrew Peeke
#12 Nick Blankenburg
#14 Jake Bean
Rights expired:
Eric Hjorth
Samuel Johanesson
Undrafted Free Agent Signees:
Cameron Butler
Hunter McKown
Nolan Lalonde
Drafted:
Adam Fantilli
Gavin Brindley
William Whitelaw
Andrew Strathmann
Luca Pinelli
Melvin Strahl
Oiva Keskinen
Tyler Peddle
Enter your votes below. You don’t have to rank all #25 if you don’t want to, but you must rank at least 10. If the embed isn’t showing up for you, you can use this link here. Voting will be open through next Wednesday, July 26. The countdown will start with #25 on Monday, July 31.
While we wait for the results, here are the top five from the last five rankings:
2022
1. Patrik Laine
2. Cole Sillinger
3. Kent Johnson
4. Adam Boqvist
5. David Jiricek
2021
1. Zach Werenski
2. Patrik Laine
3. Jack Roslovic
4. Adam Boqvist
5. Kent Johnson
2019
1. Pierre-Luc Dubois
2. Zach Werenski
3. Oliver Bjorkstrand
4. Alexandre Texier
5. Liam Foudy
2018
1. Seth Jones
2. Zach Werenski
3. Pierre-Luc Dubois
4. Oliver Bjorkstrand
5. Alexander Wennberg
2016
1. Brandon Saad
2. Seth Jones
3. Boone Jenner
4. Ryan Murray
5. Alexander Wennberg