The scary thing is that even if you exclude their 24 year olds the Jets still have one of the best teams in the thread. Relative to the Avs the Jets D is a lot better give the fact that the pair on their full roster are 23 and 22 respectively. I'm not sure about the avs depth being better either, it's pretty close IMO. With the Jets 24 year olds included they run away with it.
Ehlers - Roslovic - Laine
Connor - Petan - Dano
Vesalainen - Copp - Lemieux
Harkins - Appleton - Spacek
Depth: Skyler Mackenzie, Jordan Stallard
Morrissey - Trouba
Samberg - Niku
Stanley - Nogier
Depth: Luke Green, Jonathan Kovacevic, Nelson Nogier, Leon Gawanke
Comrie
Berdin
and may be better than any of the U25 teams. They don't have a C to match Mackinnon so it's still a worthy debate. The flip side is
Yeah, even if the preds win a couple cups and get complacent like the hawks core has, battling you guys in the 2020s is going to be a bitch.
Your NHL dmen are more proven, though I certainly think that when all is said and done the difference between Zads n Samwise and your duo will be a coin flip. Nikita has been making astonishing progress and isn’t all that far from Trouba this season, while Girard is a really special little hobbit. To me the difference lies with Makar, Meloche & Timmins. Meloche & Timmins may well be matched by your kids, but if Makar can translate his game to the NHL level, I don’t see you an answer to him in your pipeline. But a lot can change in the transition from junior/college to pro, and then again from the AHL to the NHL; so I can’t fault folks for valuing the proven-ness of Morrissey-Trouba.
Without Landy (who turned 25 two months ago) and Schef (who turns 25 in a month or two), I can’t go against MacK n Mikko. MacKinnon is playing like the best player on the planet this year and Mikko is having one hell of a sophomore season after being the avs’ only 20-goal scorer as a rookie. With how well Jost has been playing the past month or two and the chemistry he’s developing with MacK n Mikko on the PP, I dunno if I’d take any u25 top line ahead of ours...other than edmonton’s. We need another stud to anchor our second line, but the team has a lot of different middle 6 kids who could compliment a Svechnikov / Zadina / Hughes / Kakko / Draisaitl if we can get one out of one of these three firsts we have this year & next, or Chia’s stupidity.
