The Columbus Blue Jackets came into the season as one of the youngest teams in the NHL. But somehow, even this chart underscores just how young the club is.
Updated average ages of projected season opening lineups:
— CapFriendly Depth Charts (@CF_DepthCharts) October 10, 2023
BUF - 25.5
MTL - 25.7
CBJ - 25.8
ARZ - 26.2
ANA - 26.3
NJD - 26.4
OTT - 26.5
PHI - 26.8
SJS - 27.0
CHI - 27.1
VAN - 27.5
VGK - 27.6
DET - 27.7
FLA - 27.7
BOS - 27.8
WPG - 27.8
LAK - 28.0
STL - 28.0
CGY - 28.1
EDM - 28.1
Now that we're nearing the new calendar year, NHL teams have mostly decided which young players would play up to the nine-game threshold without burning a year off their entry-level contract. Among current NHL players who have played at least 10 games this season, the Blue Jackets are over-represented in youth, with a staggering four of the youngest 18 players in the NHL.
Adam Fantilli (4th youngest), David Jiricek (9th), Cole Sillinger (12th), and Kent Johnson (18th) all make the list. The Anaheim Ducks boast three such players, and the Buffalo Sabres and Chicago Blackhawks have two apiece. No other team has multiple players.
Obviously, 18 is an arbitrary cut-off. And no two players develop at the same pace over the long haul. But the reason it's notable is the clear separation between front office expectations and what should be obvious to, well, everyone else.
Simply put, a team with four of the youngest players in the NHL is a rebuilding team. I don't even know what else to add to that sentence. Teams with four very young players in key roles are not viable playoff contenders, or even average teams. Want proof? Look at Anaheim (31st in the NHL standings, as of this writing), Chicago (32nd), and Buffalo (24th).
In a perfect world, the organization would prioritize the betterment of each of these first-round, high-profile assets. Fantilli is clearly more than ready for the NHL. Johnson and Jiricek are in the NHL for good reason but are playing a minor enough role that an argument could be made that they would be better served overripening in the AHL than playing limited minutes in the NHL. Sillinger, who was notoriously smitten by a sophomore slump last season, is still one of the youngest players in the NHL, and this is his third season.
While some of that thinking is revisionist history - of course, Sillinger should have been playing in the AHL last year - I do continue to wonder why players like Jiricek and Johnson have yo-yoed down and back to Cleveland this year. If the NHL team is rebuilding, then that's fine. But the front office made it clear (with their words and their acquisitions) that the rebuild was at a minimum put on an expedited track and, at a maximum officially over. That's (obviously) been at odds with the club's actual play this season, and so we're left wondering if the team's long-term interests genuinely intersect with the long-term development of its best assets.
The rest of this season is important only in the sense that the organization needs to get the most out of these four players (among others). If that means playing a key role in the AHL (Jiricek, Sillinger, and to a lesser extent Johnson), so be it. If it means giving Fantilli (their likely best center in the absence of Boone Jenner) more ice time, that's great, too.
Having four exceptionally young players in the lineup is unique for a reason. Good teams don't have a spot for more than one of those, and even bad teams limit them to a minimum. What does that say about the Blue Jackets?
