from Travis Yost of TSN,

Stop me if you have heard this one before: the National Hockey League is getting younger, and that’s increasingly obvious on the blue line.

There are plenty of drivers behind this evolution. Front offices are much more situationally aware about aging curves (and, correspondingly, how cruel they are to older players with more mileage racked up). There’s also a major salary cap benefit, courtesy of the collective bargaining agreement, to find young talent on their first and second contracts. And the league has done a fantastic job of emphasizing two-way hockey talents through standard player development, which has led to an increased supply of these types of dynamic skaters and puck-movers.

The youth movement across the entire league has been well documented at this point. But what’s interesting to me is that 2017-18 saw another wave of young talent enter the fray. Perhaps it’s by random chance, but teams saw a considerable decline in player ages on the blue-line last year – even when compared to other recent seasons....

For the third consecutive year, the average NHL defenceman was under the age of 27. That’s more than a full year drop from just ten years ago!

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