23/24 Player Profile: Leon Draisaitl

Last Year

Leon Draisaitl lit the NHL on fire last year, flying into 2nd place in league scoring with 52 goals, 76 assists, and 128 points in 80 games played. This performance would have tied for the most points in the salary cap era, but a certain Connor McDavid surpassed that. However, in this player profile, we will focus on Draisaitl’s incredible season last year and attempt to predict what we can expect from him this year.

Last season, Draisaitl eclipsed the 50-goal mark for the second season in a row and the third time in his career. He scored 32 of those goals on the power play, leading the league. He played a huge part in what was an NHL record for the best power play over the course of a season last year – a power play that operated at a 32.4% success rate. The year before, Leon scored 24 goals on the power play, coming in second in the league, two goals behind Chris Kreider (NYR). The key to Leon’s goal-scoring success has been the power play. To reach 50 goals again, he may need in the range of 25-30 power play goals.

Leon also hit the 100-point mark for the 4th time in his career (128 points). As well, he had 110 or more points for the 3rd time. Not only has Leon historically been a goal-scoring machine, but he has also been one of the best setup men in the league. His backhand passes are regarded by many players as the best in the league. He can find teammates on the ice almost anywhere. By combining his sublime passing ability with his ability to score at will, it makes life extremely difficult for opposing goaltenders to read him and choose to play the pass or the shot. Leon and the goalie both know that whatever decision the goalie makes, Leon is mightily capable of doing the exact opposite, helping the puck find the back of the net every night.

This Year

A lot of what to expect this year from Leon will come from the power play and questions surrounding it. The main question being, can it continue at this NHL record pace it’s been on for the last 2-3 seasons?

If we take a look at the personnel, there isn’t much reason to see it stepping back anytime soon. Last year, the main power play group consisted of Draisaitl, McDavid, Nugent-Hopkins, Hyman, and Barrie. These 5 cruised along, tormenting other teams’ penalty kill units all year until the trade deadline when GM Ken Holland traded Tyson Barrie for Mattias Ekholm. Enter Evan Bouchard to PP1. There were many questions surrounding Bouchard and the power play that we’ll take a look at in his player profile. For now, all we want to see is how the power play performed with that change of defender. With Barrie, the power play was at 31.9%, and with Bouchard, the power play finished the season jumping up to 32.4%. So, the trade of Barrie and the promotion of Bouchard actually made the Oilers pp better.

With that in mind, we can start looking at our projections for Leon Draisaitl a little closer. All the same men are back on the power play. Many had career years last year, and I don’t necessarily expect them to replicate those seasons again. Though I don’t think it’s a stretch to say Leon could score another 26 goals on the PP this year.

Last year, Leon had 30 power play assists (17 the prior year). Projecting another 25 power play assists seems reasonable. So, our power play totals for Leon are shaping up to look like 26-25 for 51 points on the power play (down from 62 last year).

With the addition of a healthy Connor Brown and a healthy Evander Kane injected into the top 6, I do believe Leon will have higher quality line mates than last year, allowing himself to improve on his 5 on 5 scoring. Even though Kane was here last year and by all accounts did not play great 5 on 5 hockey after coming back from his freak wrist injury that sidelined him for a couple of months, as well as a rib injury that was nagging for much of the rest of the season, I see Kane picking up the slack and putting together a much better campaign, which in turn will help Leon’s 5 on 5 scoring.

Leon only scored 19 even strength goals last season. i expect that to jump up quite significantly this year. He scored 30 Even strength goals two years ago. I can see Leon improving these goal totals to about 26. Making him even out pp vs ES (Even Strength) goals.

He had 46 even strength assists last season, and with an improved quality of line mates, 50 seems reasonable. 26-50-76 ES points for Leon.

If we begin to add it all up 26 ES goals, 26 pp goals, and 1 shorthanded goal, we get 53 goals. eclipsing the 50 goal mark for the 3rd consecutive season.

50 ES assists, 25 pp Assists, 1 SH Assist, we get 76 assists.

53 goals and 76 assists leading Leon to 53-76-129 over the course of the season. A 1 point improvement over last year. Largely due to monumental PP success.

Next Up

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.