Welcome back to The Journey, where we track the development of prospects as they excel in junior, make the NHL, and push towards stardom.

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Inspired by Thomas Harley's incredible break out campaign in 2023-24—more on that in a moment—this will be the first in a series highlighting young players (under 24) around the league who made a significant mark on their respective teams this year, especially in terms of playdriving (relCorsiFor), playmaking/involvement (IPP), and overall value added (xWAR, xGAR).

This week, we will look at the league's final eleven teams by alphabetical order.

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At a Glance

Philadelphia: Tyson Foerster, 22 (HM: Ronnie Attard, 25)

Pittsburgh: No one

San Jose:Thomas Bordeleau, 22 (HM: Nikolai Knyzhov, 26)

Seattle: Ryker Evans, 22

St. Louis: No one (HM: Robert Thomas, 24)

Tampa Bay: No one (HM: Maxwell Crozier, 24)

Toronto: No one (HM: Connor Timmins, 24, and Timothy Liljegren, 24)

Vancouver: Nils Hoglander, 23

Vegas: Brendan Brisson, 22

Winnipeg: Cole Perfetti, 22

Washington: Ivan Miroshnichenko, 20

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Although his 33 points in 77 games will not garner him Calder consideration, Tyson Foerster had a strong rookie campaign as an effective top-six forward for Philadelphia.

A few more points would have left him just outside the top five in rookie scoring for 2023-24, so this will be a solid foundation to build on for him moving forward. He was most often stapled to Flyers' stars Travis Konecny and Sean Couturier on a dominant play-driving line (59% Corsi For), a clear vote of confidence from the coaching staff given his rookie status. Foerster kept up admirably with his elite, two-way linemates, posting top-five play-driving results on the team on top of decent secondary scoring despite receiving limited offensive-zone starts and regularly facing other teams' best players.

He will be a key piece for the Flyers moving forward.

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2023-24 was a tough year to be a Shark, especially for a rookie like Thomas Bordeleau. A 33-point pace was not overly exciting, but the underlying metrics point to an improving young player who has likely earned a full-time NHL role moving forward.

Though primarily a winger, Bordeleau posted a strong 52.8% face-off win rate, suggesting that he has some potential down the middle. He saw a ton of PP time (59.5%) and produced relatively well with the man advantage (seven PPP in 25 games), so the coaching staff are clearly trying him out as one of their top offensive weapons.

He is a well-rounded player, somewhat like Montreal's Joshua Roy: he can complement dynamic offensive players like William Eklund—and soon Macklin Celebrini—while also driving play on a checking line like he did in 2023-24 alongside Nico Sturm and Justin Bailey.

The addition of Celebrini to the San Jose pipeline is absolutely massive and bumps the value of anyone likely to get exposure to him. Bordeleau should be one of the top candidates for that, which means his fantasy value is also on an upward trajectory.

Thomas Bordeleau on the PP for the #SJSharks
2-1 pic.twitter.com/usZwsgGDKD

— JD Young (@MyFryHole) March 8, 2024

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Despite playing behind Vince Dunn and Justin Schultz as Seattle's only rookie defenceman, Ryker Evans grew his role on the Kraken power play each quarter of the campaign: 1:18 → 1:59 → 2:09. His breakthrough came in early March when Dunn went down with an injury and Evans was sent in with Adam Larsson on the top pairing in his absence. Though the production was limited, he was an important part of Seattle's attack with the man advantage (71% PP IPP), received the most offensive zone starts on the team (64.5%), and drove play well at even strength in a sheltered role (53 xG% 5v5) on the top pairing with Adam Larsson.

Dunn, the team's 27-year-old top defenceman, was just signed for three more years at a hefty hit, which will probably limit Evans short-term ceiling and opportunity. But if you can realistically take the long view, Evans should be hitting his Breakout Threshold right towards the end of that Dunn contract when he is ~25, which is a recipe for success.

What time he spent in the minors also showed active improvement, as his Shot and PPP rate both increased. He has contributed four assists in seven playoff games so far to carry Coachella Valley to the AHL Western Conference finals, breezing past both the Wranglers (CGY) and the Reign (LAK) with only one loss.

The picture is clear: Evans is on his way up. He currently sits 13th overall on Dobber's latest prospect defencemen ranking and 18th on Rank King's user-generated ranking, so the window to acquire him relatively cheaply is likely closing soon.

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St. Louis, Tampa Bay, and Toronto did not have any U24 players who met the criteria outlined above. However, a quick shout out to Conor Timmins and Timothy Liljegren for the Leafs.

Both are still young (24-year-old) former top draft picks who posted strong play-driving metrics in limited roles in 2023-24. Timmins was in and out of the lineup but was easily the strongest relative play-driver on the team when playing. He has dealt with a ton of injuries in his young career; it will be interesting to see if he can finally establish himself somewhere next year, perhaps not with the Leafs. Liljegren has really strong peripheral coverage (close to two Hits and Blocks per game) on top of solid production with a 34-point pace. He is basically right at his Breakout Threshold heading into 2024-25, so now is an excellent time to buy low on him.

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I have wanted to like Nils Hoglander more than I do for years now, and while he certainly looks like an NHL player at this point, I am still skeptical that he will ever be a valuable fantasy asset. 36 points across a full campaign while averaging just over 12 minutes a game with basically no PP time is fine but not amazing. Although he filled a decent two-way, middle-six role and drove play well for an at-times-smothering Vancouver team, he had an unsustainable shooting percentage of 20 and just passed his 200-game BT without a corresponding bump in production.

Even if we see a small step forward next year, a 25% increase on his career best would yield a point total in the mid-40s. He does not shoot or hit a ton, so he will be hard to roster unless he can take everything to another level and somehow grow his role in 2024-25. He doesn't play on Special Teams basically at all, and his deployment last year was almost perfectly neutral: not too sheltered, balanced offensive- vs. defensive-zone stars, decent impact. What kind of player is he going to be?

Without a clearer identity, taking that next step will be difficult.

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Brisson drove play incredibly well for Vegas last year alongside either Jonathan Marchessault and William Karlsson or various grinders in the bottom six. He has always been billed more as a top-six offensive weapon, so his excellent play-driving results (58.8% CorsiFor) with Marchesseault and Karlsson bode well for his NHL future. The Golden Knights continue to be loaded up front, so it is no sure thing that Brisson will stick with the big club this year.

In prospect "stock watch" terms, Brisson's fantasy value has declined steadily since he was drafted at the end of the first round in 2020. Yet he still sits 45th among prospect forwards in Rank King's user-generated rankings, in the neighbourhood of players like Jagger Firkus, Riley Heidt, and Marco Kasper, for reference. It is fantastic that he looked so solid over his first 15 NHL games (eight points).

As one of the top prospects on a team known for sending out top young talent to bring in established NHL stars, a trade involving Brisson should always be considered likelier than him making it with Vegas. If he can go somewhere somewhere else with more opportunity in the near future, that would help his stocks rebound even further.

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I expected Perfetti to push past the 50-point barrier in 2023-24, but his pace actually slowed just a touch versus the year before (48 vs. 44). More concerning is that his Time On Ice (TOI) slipped by nearly half a minute in his third campaign with Winnipeg—a trend that worsened as the season wore on.

His point production fell off a cliff as soon as his TOI started to slip. Going from 17 points in 21 games to kick off the year to only two points in 17 games mid-year is a baffling collapse to witness. The 29 points he scored over his first 42 games would have yielded a 57-point total if he had kept it up for the second half—just as I initially expected before the year began.

What are we supposed to do with Perfetti moving forward? What happened in the second half? His linemates were all over the place all year, and some underlying metrics suggest that his lower-end skating was holding him back to some extent in terms of capitalizing on rush offence. Somewhat like we saw last week with Kaliyev being scratched down the stretch in LA despite solid play-driving results—which also seems to be connected to poor footspeed—it is a bit odd that Perfetti was pushed out of the lineup given that he posted fairly strong defensive zone impacts in particular.

Cole Perfetti is an RFA this offseason. He put up 19G + 19A as a 22-year-old in a top-six role and was benched down the stretch and into the playoffs.

What does his next contract look like? Bridge deal? No doubt he's a huge part of the #NHLJets future.

📝: @JFreshHockey pic.twitter.com/hhFukTpuSe

— Connor Hrabchak (@ConnorHrabchak1) May 8, 2024

His offence wasn't where it needed to be, but he presumably will need some consistent linemates and more advantageous deployment to play to his full capability. With Winnipeg coach, Rick Bowness, announcing his retirement following the Jets' elimination from the playoffs, perhaps a new hand at the helm will also result in more opportunities for Perfetti.

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Finally, Ivan Miroshnichenko, the youngest player on this list, had a successful transition to North America from the KHL in 2023-24.

He is coming up at an interesting, turbulent time for the Capitals at the end of the Ovechkin era and represents the core of Washington's youth movement. How well he, Ryan Leonard, Connor McMichael, Hendrix Lapierre, Rasmus Sandin, and Clay Stevenson are able to improve and come together with the veterans will determine how rocky this upcoming transition will be.

During his time with the Capitals, Miroshnichenko drove play well in an offensively advantageous role but was not given much PP exposure. Although his linemates changed throughout his brief tenure, the main constant was Dylan Strome (~51% of his shifts), whose playmaking makes him an enticing companion for Miroshnichenko's heavy shot and goal-scoring instincts. That could be a very productive combination moving forward, and we should expect a big season from Miroshnichenko in 2024-25.

Get excited.

miroshnichenko is a washington capital tears in my eyes man pic.twitter.com/J5LVGJWOGK

— noah (@capsboybebop) May 19, 2024

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