In the salary-cap world, teams are relying more and more on their younger, cheaper players to provide big value. As a result, the league continues to get younger, and those youthful additions continue to make larger impacts on their respective teams.
It is hard to remember another time in recent NHL history when there was this much exciting, young talent. With that in mind, here's a look at the best young cores for the 2017-18 NHL season.
How the list was compiled: Players born in 1993 or later were eligible for inclusion in a team's young core. Only players expected to be on the NHL roster to start this season were considered in the rankings. To rank the teams, I thought about which teams I would most like, based on the eligible players right now.