Surprise publication from an expert involving Alexis Lafrenière versus three players from the Montreal Canadiens

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Elias Edmonson
August 29, 2023 (5:46 PM)

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After ranking the top young players from each organization in the NHL pipeline ranking, The Athletic website is now tackling the ranking of the top young players in the league. If we had a few surprises regarding the CH, this new ranking also raises several questions.

As with his previous rankings, Corey Pronman assesses players who are 22 years old or younger as of September 15, 2023. This is a ranking meant to show who, according to the journalist, will have the best professional career.

It is therefore not surprising to see a top 3 consisting of Connor Bedard in first place, followed by young veterans Jack Hughes and Tim Stutzle. The first questions arise immediately, as Adam Fantilli is ranked 4th, while Matvei Michkov rounds out the top 5.

Three CH players are ranked in the top 25. These are Cole Caufield (11th), Juraj Slafkovsky (19th), and David Reinbacher (25th).

All three are surprisingly ranked ahead of Alexis Lafreniere (29th) and Shane Wright (30th). Wow!

The other CH members in the ranking of 168 players are:

Kirby Dach (47th)
Kaiden Guhle (51st)
Alex Newhook (89th)
Justin Barron (123rd)
Lane Hutson (127th)
Owen Beck (136th)
Joshua Roy (146th)
Sean Farrell (162nd).

As we mentioned a few days ago in the team ranking, there is no mention of young Logan Mailloux. He only appears in the honorable mentions at the end of the text, along with those who theoretically have a chance to play in the major league.

We can also notice that there is no mention in this new ranking of Arber Xhekaj and Jan Mysak, who were ranked behind Farrell in 12th and 13th place in the team ranking. We therefore assume that, according to the journalist, these two players will have less illustrious careers than Mavrik Bourque, who is ranked last in this list.