The Athletic: CH has 11 of the 168 best players under 23

In recent days, The Athletic – via Corey Pronman – has ranked the NHL’s youth banks (under 23). We saw that the Habs came in sixth in the NHL , with Cole Caufield leading the way.

Juraj Slafkovsky, David Reinbacher, Kirby Dach and Kaiden Guhle rounded out the top-5. Lane Hutson’s eighth-place finish was the subject of much debate.

So, of course, was seeing Logan Mailloux in the honorable mentions (i.e. not in the club’s top-18).

And while we’re on the subject of ranking each team’s youngsters, the journalist also drew up a ranking of the best youngsters, all teams included. The Habs find themselves with 11 guys in their top-168.

Still, it’s interesting. For each club to have 11 youngsters in the ranking, it would take one of 352 players. And as there are “only” 168, that’s an average of 5.25 per club.

What’s also interesting is that the Habs still have five guys (the first five named earlier) in the top-51. The guys are ranked 11th, 19th, 25th, 47th and 51st.

That’s not bad…. just like the rest.

• 89: Alex Newhook
• 123: Justin Barron
• 127: Lane Hutson
• 136: Owen Beck
• 146: Joshua Roy
• 162: Sean Farrell

But if we want to find something negative, it’s that there may be enviable depth in the youth bank, but there’s still a lack of players at the top of the pyramid.

I know that Caufield (11th) and Nick Suzuki, too old to be in the rankings, have a lot of talent and aren’t old. But still: the CH has no players in the top three tiers of the rankings.

• Tier 1 – Generational and elite player: Connor Bedard.
• Tier 2 – Elite: Jack Hughes, Tim Stutzle, Adam Fantilli and… Matvei Michkov, who is a special case for reasons we all know.
• Tier 3 – Elite and All-Star: Dylan Cozens, Matty Beniers, Trevor Zegras and Luke Hughes
• Tier 4 – All-Star: Leo Carlsson, Cole Caufield and six other players after them

But apart from this aspect, which isn’t dramatic in the sense that the Habs still have a player in the top-11 (which isn’t the case for everyone), the future is encouraging. But we already knew that.

In bursts

– Attention all interested parties.

– It’s going to keep on brewing.

– Great story.

– Of note.