The allure of youth in the NHL is neverending.

Successful, veteran teams want young players to help keep the wins coming, and bad teams want young players to provide hope for a better future.

When you look around the league, there are some teams whose young players have taken prominent roles already and others whose prospects are on the verge of making the show. Usually, teams in those positions in their builds (or rebuilds or re-rebuilds) aren’t too high up in the standings and are instead laying in the weeds waiting to strike.

What we’re looking to do today is figure out seven young teams that are in the best shape to win the Stanley Cup in the next three years. To make my decisions, I looked at what teams have in their systems right now, both at the NHL level and further down the pipeline. This is fun, because it allows me the chance to look into the future while not forcing me to figure out where players like Connor Bedard or Matvei Michkov will wind up in future drafts.

Buffalo Sabres

It’s hard not to put the Buffalo Sabres in this conversation when you look at who their top players are this season.

Tage Thompson is second in the NHL in goals, and he’s 25 years old. Rasmus Dahlin is 22 years old, and among defensemen he’s second in goals and third in points. The Sabres have five players with 30-plus points, and three of them are 25 or younger (Thompson, Dahlin, and 21-year-old Dylan Cozens).

At 30, Jeff Skinner looks reborn playing with Thompson and 26-year-old Alex Tuch, and they’re the other two players with 30-plus points. Behind them, there are 21-year-old forwards JJ Peterka and Jack Quinn. And if you’re watching the World Junior Championships, chances are you’ve seen other young guys on the way to Buffalo, including Sweden’s Isak Rosén and Noah Östlund and Czechia’s Jiri Kulich.

It’s not just Dahlin doing work on defense, either. His partner, Mattias Samuelsson, is becoming one of the best young defenders in the league, and 20-year-old Owen Power is showing all the signs of being a great defenseman.

Should any of Eric Comrie, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, or prospect Devon Levi turn into a true No. 1 goalie, the Sabres will be a tough team for opponents to deal with for years to come.

With the success of Buffalo’s young players, the path back to the postseason isn’t hard to imagine. If this young Sabres core can get the team back to the playoffs for the first time since 2011, hopes of them carrying the Stanley Cup back to Western New York for the first time ever wouldn’t be far behind.