NHL’s best players under age 25 for 2017: Mark Scheifele ranks No. 6 after breakout year

Note: This is SB Nation NHL’s top 25 players under age 25 series! We’ll be covering each player from No. 25 to No. 1 over the next few weeks leading up to training camp time. See the complete list and information on how the rankings were compiled.

For a lot of the players on this list, it’s about projection because they haven’t reached their full potential yet. Mark Scheifele, on the other hand, has steadily progressed over his four seasons in the NHL from solid contributor to one of the most dominant forwards in the game.

There may not be much more upside for Scheifele, but he was so good in 2016-17 that he doesn’t need to get much better. He’s already a legitimate No. 1 center on an up-and-coming Jets team that could be ready to make the leap from the lottery to the playoffs next spring.

The franchise’s first draft pick since leaving Atlanta in 2011, Scheifele didn’t burst onto the scene as an immediate star like Connor McDavid or Auston Matthews. He recorded just 83 points in 145 games over his first two full seasons, showing signs of potential but without the burst of production we’ve seen from other young stars.

Scheifele just took a bit longer to put it all together, though. After beginning to tap into his full potential with 61 points in 71 games during the 2015-16 season, the 24-year-old broke out with 32 goals and 82 points in 79 games last season. Now smack dab in the middle of his prime, he looks to be one of the NHL’s most productive players in the coming few years.

Lots of players on this list have been good, but they’re on it because of their potential to be great. Scheifele has already had one great season, and there are likely more in the pipes.

The Jets drafted Scheifele with the No. 7 overall pick in 2011, sandwiched between fellow forwards Mika Zibanejad and Sean Couturier. He put up 1.13 points per game in the OHL in his draft year, then progressed to 1.34 and 1.76 over his next two seasons with the Barrie Colts.

Scheifele then leaped straight past the AHL to Winnipeg, where he had two solid seasons before breaking out over the past two seasons with 143 points in 150 games.

Part of what hastened Scheifele’s development was being surrounded with better talent. For the 2014-15 season, when he put up 49 points in 82 games, his main linemates were Blake Wheeler, Michael Frolik, and Mathieu Perreault, per Natural Stat Trick. That’s not a bad group, but it pales in comparison to being teamed up with an improved Wheeler, Patrik Laine, and Nikolaj Ehlers as your top three linemates.

And while it’s fair to wonder whether that change in talent accounts for a big chunk of Scheifele’s increase in production, TSN’s Travis Yost wrote an interesting article recently breaking down how the center is actually the driving force behind the Jets’ impressive offense.

Scheifele has also emerged as a key player for Team Canada, having represented his country at the 2014, 2016, and 2017 World Championships. He won gold in 2016 with nine points in nine games, then got silver in 2017 with eight points in 10 games.

Scheifele has already established himself as the Jets’ No. 1 center, and he should fill that role for the foreseeable future given he’s signed for the next seven years at a $6.125 million cap hit. That’s likely going to be a bargain for Winnipeg given how second contracts for high-scoring stars have rocketed over the past year.

Just as a quick aside, consider that Connor McDavid got $12.5 million, Leon Draisaitl got $8.5 million, Ryan Johansen got $8 million, and Evgeny Kuznetsov got $7.8 million. Only one of those players, the reigning Hart Trophy winner, recorded more points than Scheifele last season. It’s fair to assume the Jets saved at least $2 million per year, and likely more, by getting Scheifele locked into a max term deal when they did.

And that savings should help ensure that Laine, Ehlers, and other key players can be re-signed, too, setting the stage for the Jets to boast one of the league’s best top-six forward groupings for years to come.

There are some reasons to think Scheifele could take a step back, though. He scored 32 goals on just 160 shots last season, which is a 20 percent success rate. Scheifele might be an above-average shooter, but his career rate was just 12.2 percent entering 2016-17. He’s shot 17.2 percent over the past two seasons, which is a large enough sample to suggest he won’t suddenly dip to eight percent, but regression is likely there.

He’s also never performed in the playoffs, having recorded just one assist in a four-game sweep against Anaheim in 2015.

But the base line of performance here is extremely high, and Scheifele should be more than worth his cap hit over the next seven seasons.

This seems like a pretty reasonable place to put Scheifele. He doesn’t quite have the same upside as McDavid, Matthews, or Jack Eichel, but he’s already set a high enough bar of performance that he should be right in the next tier. Lots of very good players with immense upside will never reach it like Scheifele has.

Highest rank: No. 3
Lowest rank: Not ranked