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Get to know your T25 Official Vote Panel for this year:

Cathy: Once again, the cruel overlord of PPP has forced me to vote on these prospects. I will confess that I’ve paid very little attention to the Marlies this year, so I’m stealing other people’s knowledge on that area of prospects. I found it a challenge to vote, and also fun because I had to revise my thinking on some players. I expect to revise a lot more as the reveal goes on and people speak up about what they think.

For anyone new here’s my basic philosophy of the T25: I rank wholly on my estimate of the probability of peak performance of the player. I do not contextualize that based on where they play or where they are likely to play. I don’t care about points and never look at them. Points, particularly goals, do correlate with value, but this method makes big mistakes on some players. So it might be useful for some population level measuring if your need for accuracy is not high, but it is unsuitable for individuals. I also don’t believe in the floor/ceiling paradigm. I do rank based on age and draft position for the youngest players and then gradually ignore that entirely.

This year I entered my rankings from last year and then added players and moved them around. I like to do a manual simple sort you learn in programming 101. Is b > a? Then b becomes a and a become b. repeat down the list. Then when I’m done I skew it some more by age.

shinson93: Grateful for the chance to be back for a second year.  I’ve had more time and more access to prospect games and coverage this year and love to read whatever Brigstew writes.  I really enjoyed so many new names as the Dubas era prospects age out or otherwise leave the pipeline.  Lately I’ve been thinking more about what will make a prospect successful generally vs whether they will specifically have success within the Leafs system. After so many years of voting, I’ve settled on a system where I start from a prospect pyramid ranking and then dig into some details to refine individual rankings.  I don’t really spend much time on stats anymore, but spend more time trying to think about where a prospect is on their development timeline and how they are performing in that context. My favorite part of this is the sharing of ideas and being challenged on my own thinking.

Brigstew: It me, the prospect guy. I’m probably the highest and the harshest on prospects compared to the near-NHLers. For me to rank a prospect higher than someone who has already played at higher levels (junior to AHL to NHL) I have to believe they have a good chance of being better. I tend to rank more aggressively for prospects that I really like, but when I see them stop growing and improving and haven’t gotten to a good enough level I will drop them off pretty quick. My views and criteria around that have changed over the years, and will probably continue to change. I’ve come to value guys who are still making big improvements, because I’ve seen others ride that to legitimate prospect status like Knies and Greb. 

Zone Entry: PPP will always be special to me as one of the very first places I came out–first as a Nylander fan (not always popular!) and then as a trans woman (she/her)–and found acceptance here both times 😃

I’m old enough to remember when the only source of hockey stats was waiting for the weekly page in the newspaper with the counting stats for full rosters of every team, and trying to form opinions on non-Leafs (or even unsung Leafs) based on that alone, plus maybe if that other team happened to play the Leafs on TV recently. Now, for any given player, I can find 100 reasons why they suck or are awesome at the click of a mouse! …progress??

My ranking system evolves (or at least, changes) from year to year, but is always an effort to combine (a) inherent talent; (b) value to the organization; (c) possible ceiling and odds of reaching it; (d) how well their name fits the Spiderman cartoon theme; and (e) do they share a name with a character from The Expanse? Joe Miller always scores very well on that last one.

For bonus fun here’s my ranking of Top Sceptres Under 25: (1) Raygan Kirk (2) Emma Gentry (3) Clara Van Wieren (4) Kiara Zanon (5) Maggie Connors (6) Hanna Baskin …. And that’s everyone (the expansion draft really hurt this list!). Thanks again to PPP for letting me participate in this chaos 😀

Hardev: Hello again, everyone! In keeping consistent with the last 10 or so years of doing this (yikes, help). I enjoy taking the time in the summer to absorb as much as I can from the previous season. Brigs’ reports and highlight posts are excellent, but I also dive into team lineups and news to get a perspective of how a player is viewed by their coach. I had a whole Google Sheet running for the Marlies lines for a long time, but I can do it more efficiently now. Villeneuve and Quillan moved up for me from that exercise this summer.

Echoing Zone Entry, I don’t treat this as a fantasy ranking but as a practical ranking. I’m trying to think about how these players are likely to be viewed by NHL teams, either playing or as trade pieces. Who are the players that will play for the Leafs, who is most likely to get a call-up, who is most likely to be coveted in a trade. I think that makes me balance the players who are close to the NHL and might get a cup of coffee with the promising prospects and the ones who need a lot to change for either result. That also means I’m quite harsh on players who I don’t believe will translate their game to the NHL or who have tried and left. I’m sorry, SDA. Less sorry, Topi. 

This ranking was tough, but there are some really fun questions and debates to be had. I have thoughts but I’m not sure how sure I am of them yet.

dhammm: Howdy and thanks to the PPP brass for the opportunity to guest-vote for the third year in a row. I like to look at prospects from the data science-y perspective that emphasizes production and tries to estimate the probability that a given prospect might make the NHL as an above-average player. 

Now, this year’s T25U25 is a bit awkward because all these models look at the Leafs’ pipeline right now and sound like Principal Skinner, so I will try to think about how prospects might prove them wrong. My goal is to err on the side of optimism and keep an open mind about what would need to go right for a prospect to not just play NHL games but be better than a player any team could claim off waivers. I do not think much about the prospect’s value to the Leafs in particular. To express this as a ranked list, I sort prospects into tiers, order the tiers, and order the prospects within those tiers.

Species: I’ve been doing these rankings since 2014, which is when I ranked Martin Marincin at #14 and Cathy ranked him at #5. I mean, you could make a case we were both correct in different ways, because Marincin was played as much as a #5 would be, but he played like he was a #14. But enough about him. If you say his name three times in one paragraph he returns to the Leafs with a new contract.

I went to about 30 Marlies home games last season, and I even went all the way out to California to see them play at the AHL All-Star Classic, so I have a pretty good feel on those players in our list, but I rely on outside sources who watch the players in major junior or NCAA. I really like to vote for possible ceiling vs. expectations for at least some prospects each year, and while I say this every year, this one was the most difficult to sort out because I got down to #10 and then was at a loss. I made a few big bets though on some interesting names who deserve it. I hope you enjoy it.

Svalbard38: Longtime fan of the series, and I’m honoured to have been picked as a first-time guest voter. I’ve been a fan of the Leafs since the Sundin era, my first in-person game was the Nashville 9-2 beating in the Bad Years, but it was only around the start of the Matthews era that I started getting invested in the prospects, and the PPP T25U25 played a big role in that for me. I’m really excited to be a part of this year’s ranking.

Towards the top of my rankings I tend to look more at the floor than the ceiling. If it’s between a guy who is who he is and a younger guy with a higher ceiling but a lower floor, it’s a bit of a tie-goes-to-the-veteran situation for me. Further down my list though, the tie goes to the younger guy. If it’s a player a year or two away from aging out of prospect status versus a recent draft pick, I favour the younger player. In the spirit of full disclosure, I’ll admit to a bias in favour of guys who I’ve seen play full games. It’s a lot easier to buy into a guy when you’ve seen him play than if you’re just going off of highlights and reports. I tried not to let that influence my ballot too much, but towards the end of my rankings I leaned a bit more towards guys I’m more familiar with, and because of the availability of streams that means CHL guys probably got a bit of a boost. 

Cameron: I’m Cameron, a voter from last year! I am a lifetime fan of the Leafs and someone who spends way too much time watching prospects. My rankings take both upside as well as NHL probability. 

This was a very difficult group to rank as I like a lot of the prospects in the system right now, even if it isn’t an elite group of prospects/young players, I still have found a lot of fun watching them play! Players who have moved back overseas from North America I tend to rank a lot lower since it is typically not a good sign for their development as well as their chances of making the NHL.

I have seen at least a bit of film on every prospect but I am most familiar with those playing in the CHL and World Juniors. I also like taking a bit of a swing on a guy or two that I really believe in, even if it is not the general consensus. Can’t wait for the T25U25 to start for 2025!

Adam: Since commenting on the first Top 25, to obsessing over prospects until 2020, I have now demoted myself down to just a voter and the token Old Guy Without a Clue. That cranky guy they keep around on the editorial pages, but doesn’t do much else.

For me, I take NHL experience above all, then I take a very serious look and guess at who’s the most NHL ready / has a name I recognize.

I have been reading what my very smart colleagues have written about prospects and Marlies, but I’ll admit I watched more USports and PWHL games this year than Marlies or junior games. With that caveat, I would like to preemptively blame everyone else for anything I did wrong.

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