There were 8.4 seconds left to play, the Edmonton Oilers were leading 1-0 over the Los Angeles Kings – an unusual result, the Oilers are better known as goal scorers and goal collectors, the spectators were able to marvel at a total of 27 goals in the first three games . There was a face-off in the Oilers’ third, Leon Draisaitl won the puck against Anze Kopitar, an experienced and skilled face-off duelist. However, the disc came into the possession of Kings goal scorer Adrian Kempe via a detour. He took off; Draisaitl, however, was in the right position, blocked the shot and pushed the puck out of danger.
“Goal preventer” has not yet been a quality on Draisaitl’s business card. He is known for being the first player since Jaromir Jagr to have five NHL seasons with at least 40 goals and 100 scoring points (hits and assists combined) – this season there were 41 and 106, which by his standards, it can’t give a higher compliment, sounds average.
“Goal preventer Draisaitl” sounded as unlikely before the start of the playoffs as a 1-0 win for the Oilers with a shot record of 13:33. What was likely: the Oilers’ move into the second round of the playoffs, and they managed that on Wednesday evening in their own hall: the score was 4:3 in the end, Draisaitl scored the goals to make it 2:2 and 3:2, he turned this game around i.e. with the skills for which he has been famous for years.
“I’ve gotten a lot better defensively.”
Of course, the next few weeks will be about the Stanley Cup, which the Oilers want to win for the first time in 34 years. Due to NHL regulations, the team’s performance in these playoffs will determine whether Draisaitl will stay in Edmonton over the summer break. Although his contract runs until 2025, that means the Oilers could only get adequate value in a trade after this season or during the coming season. This elimination round is intended to provide the club and players with information as to whether Draisaitl and the Stanley Cup in Edmonton will work out.
Former Oilers professional Georges Laraque claims to have learned from the management environment: “They expect that if he fails early, he would prefer to move to the Boston Bruins rather than stay.” Draisaitl himself is holding back: “I know my contract situation, I’m in contact with my agent. I can’t say anything more.”
The Cologne native has been playing for the traditional Canadian club since the start of his professional career ten years ago. The Oilers have been one of the best NHL teams for five years – and every year for five years they have assured that they are now more than just the congenial attacker duo Draisaitl and Connor McDavid, who managed 32 goals and 100 assists in the regular season and eleven scorer points in five playoff games so far (Draisaitl has ten). That they are now more stable, that they will defend better and that their goalkeeper will not let them down this time. Every year it ended up being a failure in the playoffs, always before the final series.
You could now recite all the platitudes as to why it could finally work out this year – like Draisaitl did before the start of the playoffs. He would be foolish to say otherwise. But you could also take another sentence from him, this one: “I’ve gotten a lot better defensively.”
The real reason, and this leads back to those moments at the end of the fourth game against the Kings, why the Oilers could actually do something: the completion of Draisaitl as the so-called “200-foot player”. So someone who can shape the game anywhere on the ice.
Since Draisaitl became a center forward in the second row, his strengths have come into their own even better
Draisaitl has been credibly asserting for years that individual statistics mean nothing to him. However, he should be proud of a few this year because they have nothing to do with goals and passes: He increased his win rate on face-offs from 50.5 percent six years ago to 56.9, and it’s even higher in the playoffs than 60 percent. Most pucks stolen against LA: Draisaitl. Most blocked shots: Draisaitl. “The system helped me,” he says about the fact that the new coach Kris Knoblauch, who has only been in office since November, does not send him onto the ice with McGregor as a winger, but as a center and thus as the linchpin of the second line of attack.
The Oilers showed what that means in the series against the Kings: they scored 20 of their 23 playoff goals with Draisaitl and/or McDavid on the ice. So you could say: Changing the attacking lines is more like reloading, the opponents are constantly in great danger of conceding a goal.
Anyone who talks to Draisaitl notices how happy he is that he is not reduced to scoring and preparing goals. But when it is noticeable how he prevents goals, wins face-offs, protects the puck, pursues opponents, reliably clears the game equipment and hardly ever loses the puck. In short: he is responsible for the success of his team on every square meter of the playing surface with actions that do not appear in statistics.
“I’ve taken a big step,” says Draisaitl, which of course makes him all the more valuable than the eight million dollars a year he currently receives. Shortly before the start of next season he will celebrate his 29th birthday, and from July 1st he could extend a long-term contract in Edmonton – if the Oilers want to afford a second player with a double-digit million salary (McDavid gets 12.5) and Draisaitl believes that it will work out with the title in Edmonton. Every win is an argument for staying, the opponent in the second round will be determined between Nashville and Vancouver.