Filipovic's Fun Facts: Young players thriving

We're running a recurring monthly feature this season called 'Filipovic's Fun Facts', in which we'll highlight a number of stats, trends, or performances that warrant further attention. The plan is to dig a bit deeper on each topic, discuss why it's significant, and why you should ultimately care. We'll use data as a starting point to guide us in the right direction, but we'll mix in some video work and game theory to help squeeze functional value out of the stats wherever we can.

The scope of topics we've covered so far over the past couple of months has been about as eclectic as you could imagine. We've looked into how Brady Tkachuk generates shot attempts that break expected goals models, and why Mark Stone is so good defensively. We've also conducted deep dives on Jesse Puljujärvi and Conor Garland, two players who couldn't look more different physically but share the common story of taking weird paths to get to where they are at present.

Now that the trade deadline has passed, we're all starting to collectively shift our attention towards the fun stuff. It's time to start thinking about the playoffs and awards ballots, as the regular season hits its homestretch. In the spirit of that, this time we're going to focus on a couple of young players that have really elevated their production to a whole new level.