Pensburgh Top 25 Under 25: Graduates and Departed players in 2024

Our summer series counting down the best young players in the Penguins’ organization begins with those who have left the organization or aged out

If you ask me, the low point in the Penguins’ amount and quality of young players was 2022. The pipeline was neglected for years at this point as the team burned off futures for immediate results in the years leading up to that. Seriously, just look at this list!

#25: Nolan Collins
#24: Colin Swoyer
#23: Jonathan Gruden
#22: Ty Glover
#21: Kirill Tankov
#20: Judd Caulfield
#19 Corey Andonovski
#18: Jordan Frasca
#17: Isaac Belliveau
#16: Taylor Gauthier
#15: Alex Nylander
#14: Nathan Legare
#13: Tristan Broz
#12: Raivis Ansons
#11: Lukas Svejkovsky
#10: Filip Lindberg
#9: Filip Hallander
#8: Valtteri Puustinen
#7: Joel Blomqvist
#6: Sam Poulin
#5: Drew O’Connor
#4: Ryan Poehling
#3: Owen Pickering
#2: P.O. Joseph
#1: Ty Smith

Drew O’Connor is a nice enough player, Valtteri Puustinen is on the verge of establishing himself and yeah there’s still some hope for Pickering, Broz and maybe even Poulin — but my goodness, this is not a particularly good list of talent.

The list from 2021 wasn’t anything special either, but it at least had John Marino still eligible to be on it and in 2020 the team had Marino, Marcus Pettersson and Jared McCann all qualifying as talent in the organization under 25.

The good news for the Pens is that since 2022, the tide has been slowly turning and more young talent is getting introduced to the organization. More resources are being placed towards younger players and futures. And they’re weeding out the old — seven players from the summer 2022 list were not around 12 months later. Fast forward to now and there’s even more change as Kyle Dubas puts his stamp on the organization, nine players who appeared on Pensburgh’s 2023 T25U25 will not be back this summer in our series about to kick off. They are as follows:

Pittsburgh did manage to graduate Puustinen and St. Ivany, both of whom could/should be on the NHL team next season (but neither of whom figure to play a major role), but the overall tenure of this list is sad. While having some washouts and misfires down the list are standard and regular, the two defenders at the top stick out for instances of what could have been.

Ty Smith was the main return for John Marino and his contribution to the Penguins ended up being nine NHL games. P.O. Joseph was unable to find a lot of traction or leave much more of a lasting mark. What is done has been done at this point with each now in new organizations, but if nothing else they represent some hurt for not being able to see those developmental stories pay off with positive endings.

That too can be a regular occurrence in prospect/young player tracking, but 12-24 months ago it would have hurt to know that in summer 2024 that both Smith and Joseph would be gone now, while having contributed very little and with the team having nothing of value to show for them on their way out the door.

Despite the failures and low amount of general talent in the past, the good news is that hockey development is ever-evolving but always present. There are new young players entering the organization and the Penguins will be looking to stock up on as many of them as possible, and hopefully get some better results on the next batch of prospects that come through.

Because while we highlight and say goodbye formally to the players leaving the list, that also means more are coming to take their place. And none too quickly, as Daily Faceoff pointed out recently, the trend of the last decade has shown that player peak contributions kick in around age 23-24 and it’s all downhill from there for the typical career.

This feature is called the Top 25 Under 25, but it’s also a race against the clock to get young players developed and into positions to contribute to the NHL during their early 20’s and while they should be near the best versions of themselves. That’s only been accomplished occasionally in the near past in Pittsburgh but the good news for Pens’ fans is that the rock bottom for the T25U25 list has been reached. Talent in the organization is starting to slowly turn back around with some real candidates to be able to make impacts down the line.

There were two second round picks this year to enter the process, but closer to the NHL level 2024-25 will see the AHL/pro debuts of Owen Pickering, Tristan Broz and Sergei Murashov. The team will also get their first full look at Jake Guentzel acquired players in Vasily Ponomarev and Ville Koivunen. Brayden Yager could be on the brink of making a run for a nine-game NHL audition. It takes a long time for a team to get production from young players (especially only one top-15 pick in recent memory) but Pittsburgh — or at least Wilkes-Barre — will be starting to see some real progress from the first wave of young talent in quite a while. That will hopefully lead to a more interesting and fun T25U25 series in the days ahead.