The Hot 25 Under 25

The Hot 25 Under 25 is a light hearted look at the obsession we have with creating rankings in hockey. We’ll rank anything and everything about players, and in the spirit of that comes the Hot 25 Under 25. A list so out of the box that it’s not possible to take too seriously.

Hockey players are measured on a lot of statistics and characteristics throughout the year. Is a guy good in the room? How many goals has he scored? Are his assists primary or secondary? What type of time on ice does he log? How prone is he to injuries? How marketable is he? Does the press like him? All of these and more are metrics players are evaluated on. Players are also evaluated on their overall attractiveness every day. Overall attractiveness seems to be a category which combines physical attractiveness and hockey skill into a strange hybrid which helps to advertisers pick who they want for their commercials and sell products. It’s one of the reasons there are more ads with Connor McDavid than say… Milan Lucic.

The Hot 25 Under 25 attempts to create a subjective ranking of players based on the highly subjective metric of overall attractiveness. In fact, there would be no consensus around what exactly makes someone attractive. For the purposes of this list it will be physical attractiveness and hockey skill as gauged by only one person. There are only two well defined criteria for this list, the simplest of possible requirements. One, each player must be part of the Oilers system, either at the NHL or developmental level. Two, each player must be under 25 years old. Though I will admit a certain fondness for faces that don’t look like they’ve been hit a million times with pucks and noses that don’t look broken.

The Hot 25 Under 25 presented without further commentary:

#25 – Jesse Puljujarvi

#24 – Philip Kemp

#23 – Ziyat Paigin

#22 – Stuart Skinner

#21 –Jujhar Khaira

#20 – Kyle Platzer

#19 -- Kirill Maksimov

#18 – John Marino

#17 – Tyler Benson

#16 – Markus Niemelainen

#15 – Dillion Simpson

#14 – Caleb Jones

#13 – Matthew Benning

#12 – Kailer Yamamoto

#11 – William Lagesson

#10 – Filip Berglund

#9 –Ryan Nugent-Hopkings

#8 –Ryan Strome

#7 – Ethan Bear

#6 – Darnell Nurse

#5 – Adam Larsson

#4 – Connor McDavid

#3 – Laurent Brossoit

#2 – Oscar Klefbom

#1 – Leon Draisaitl

Obviously, a variety of factors can change the ranking of players, but this is one possible Hot 25 Under 25. The Hot 25 Under 25 this year is a mix of proven talent, where their faces are known, and prospects who are relatively unknown.

This is one possible Hot 25 Under 25, there could be a number of others.