Despite imperfect performance, Oilers’ Draisaitl still comes up clutch
That Draisaitl made a point of calling himself out after a game in which he scored the winner with 1:35 to play, had four shots on net and went 71 per cent in the faceoff circle tells you just how high the bar sits in Edmonton these days.
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EDMONTON — Leon “Pele” Draisaitl wasn’t going to be fooled by a dazzling soccer-style, shin pad to tape to the back of the net game-winner.
He thought his game was pferdekot — German for horse poop — and one late game-winner wasn’t going to change that.
“It felt like the momentum, we would have it and then a turnover would happen,” he said. “But that’s mainly our line tonight. Mainly me.
“All-in-all, especially on my behalf and my line, there were too many turnovers.”
Sure, Draisaitl’s game was less than pferdekot. But these days, that’s a level that many NHL players will never ascend to.
The fact that he made a point of calling himself out after a game in which he scored the winner with 1:35 to play, had four shots on net and went 71 per cent in the faceoff circle tells you just how high the bar sits in Edmonton these days.
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If this guy is one of your leaders, you’re likely in a pretty good place.
The Oilers jumped to a 2-0 lead over the Anaheim Ducks, and had copious opportunities to extend the lead to a place that the Ducks would have deemed unreachable. But Anaheim hung around, largely due to stellar netminding by one of the better young goalies in the game today, Lukas Dostal, and tied the game 2-2 with 13 minutes to play.
When the clock wound down inside two minutes, Draisaitl took control.
He gained the zone, protected a puck against two Ducks, and kicked it back to an open defenceman. Two passes later, he was collecting a deflected pass with his shin the way Alphonso Davies would gather a long pass, and snapping a shot bar down behind Dostal.
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There are many players in the game who can do any one or two of those things on a single shift. There are a select few, however, who can do them all, which is why Draisaitl leads the league with 28 goals and is right in the Hart Trophy hunt as the halfway point of the season approaches.
In today’s NHL, nobody protects a puck and commands the speed at which the game is played better than Draisaitl. And no one scores 50 goals and 100 points more consistently than a guy once voted “Best Passer” by his NHLPA colleagues and now leads the race for the Rocket Richard Trophy.
“Being clutch, that’s quite an understatement. Just because of how many things he’s done this year,” began his head coach Kris Knoblauch. “In the third period, he had a couple of really good scoring chances. There was a high tip where the goalie made a great save, and the last one to catch that puck bouncing around and to release it as quick as he does and put it where he does, that’s an elite play.”
Draisaitl has been this team’s MVP this season, on a club that counts the greatest player in the world today as a member. He’s riding a 13-game point streak, has 28 goals in 38 games, and is tied for fourth in the NHL at plus-21. Forty-one of his 57 points have come at even strength.
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He’s also boiling towards the fourth 50-goal, 100-point season of his career. And, of course, he leads the league with nine game-winning goals.
“I take big pride in stepping up when it is needed most,” Draisaitl said. “It is always something that is really important to me and that I pride myself in. Some years, it seems to go your way in certain moments, and in other years, it doesn’t. That is just the way this league works. But obviously, I’ll take it.”
The Oilers head to Seattle for a Saturday night game that opens a four-game road trip through Seattle, Boston, Pittsburgh and Chicago. This win starts a nine-game run where no two games are played in the same city, as they stop home for just one game before heading out once more.
