Leon Draisatl - time to prove?

[Tralfamadore]

The guy is legit. Right up there with McDavid and MacKinnon. Kind of unfair that the Oilers have him AND McDavid.

 

[Skinnyjimmy08]

8 points ahead of McDavid in NHL scoring race and 11 points ahead of the next non Oiler .

 

[FLAMESFAN]

He definitly answered the bell game 1, but teams often do when their top player is out.

What many want to see though is can he carry the team?

 

[Jordan Belfort]

2nd in goals and 3rd in points in the entire league from the start of last season. But it will never be enough.

I don’t get why people don’t understand. The guy is out producing McDavid, and he’s better.

 

[Jordan Belfort]

I mean he certainly was for the first quarter of the season and that made a lot more sense once the extent of McDavid's knee injury was released. They've taken turns since then carrying the load, but if you asked me who has been more consistently good this season I'd probably say Draisaitl. McDavid is the better player, but his season hasn't been up to what he's capable of which is reasonable given how badly he was injured at the end of last season. I expect McDavid to come out flying next year if he's healthy through to the summer, but as of right now Draisaitl should be leading the Hart Trophy race.

But that’s really just not true. Draisitl brings more to the table than McDavid, is a better scorer, better passer, and stronger. McDavid has the speed, hands, and flash but in the end it doesn’t really matter because Drai will outproduce him.

 

[a mangy Meowth]

A good start towards proving folks like me wrong I'd say

 

[McSpecial DraiBlend]

He's young, has the potential, and he's the best at certain things.... But overall I'd still say Klef and Nurse are better (and I imagine Tippett and Holland would agree). That being said, he's clearly in the top-4 and doing more than can usually be expected from a 22yr old defender in only his 3rd pro season. He's really delivered this season.

One thing he is already clearly the best at is transitioning the puck out of his end with a quick outlet.

 

[BertMcDrai]

He definitly answered the bell game 1, but teams often do when their top player is out.

What many want to see though is can he carry the team?

I think he has carried the team through the first quarter of the season till McD was himself again after his injury and now he is (hopefully) doing it again...but I hope McD comes back quickly cause it´s almost impossible to carry a group af AHL`er to a longer period...but if the team plays like yesterday he has a good chance to do it.

 

[Oilslick941611]

His 5-on-5 scoring numbers without McDavid this year are indeed elite, but only if you place a very heavy value on secondary assists. His goal-scoring, primary assist, and primary point rates without him are not elite.

I don't know what "not good enough" for me is. I mean, what do you want me to say? What do you want to hear from me?

I mean sure. If you only place value on secondary assists, rather than the actually results. The results don’t matter right? I don’t know why they even play the games for real, they should just plop numbers in a spreadsheet and simulate them, we’d get a better representation of what the players could actually do then.


Right?

 

[Jesus Take the Wheel]

He definitly answered the bell game 1, but teams often do when their top player is out.

What many want to see though is can he carry the team?

He has 27 points in 14 games since the start of January while playing 5 on 5 without McDavid, what else Drai need to do to show he can carry the team...

 

[BlueBaron]

I don’t get why people don’t understand. The guy is out producing McDavid, and he’s better.

Have you considered the obvious answer?

Hint, it's not that you're smarter than everyone else.

 

[Frank Drebin]

Oh, I know exactly why people incessantly mock me about my John Carlson thread and why they do it about Draisaitl. It's because they completely fail to properly comprehend the argument that I'm making, they don't like the idea of looking at anything beyond raw points, or they don't like the idea that we can quantify a player's defensive impact on the game and hold poor defensive players such as Carlson/Draisaitl accountable. Often times, all of these things. And I don't care, ever, I just find it disappointing, and wish people would respond to the arguments that I actually make, and consider a different perspective.

I'm well aware that most teams who lead in the third period of an important game tighten up and stop taking chances. This is a well-researched phenomenon, and new research from Micah McCurdy suggests that this is mostly driven by the leading team hanging back, rather than the trailing team pushing harder. It has been well studied enough that there is a baseline level of what share of play that a team controls based on what their lead is, and score-adjusted numbers look at a player's number relative to that baseline, rather than the baseline of 50% that raw numbers used.

When shown Draisaitl's numbers last season when McDavid was sick/suspended, I said something to the effect of "great, but a lot of this comes from the power play, and these still don't look so great over the course of the full season or the last few full seasons."

This season, his on-ice numbers away from 97 certainly do look better.

Oilers with Draisaitl, without McDavid: 47.96% CF, 51.35% GF, 48.97% xGF
Oilers without Draisaitl or McDavid: 48.03% CF, 39.80% GF, 49.09% xGF

Still a slight drag on CF% and xGF%, but negligibly so, and more importantly, his offense clearly out-weighs his mediocre play driving, as evidenced by the GF%, which is driven by outperforming expected goals for and not goaltending. And I fully expect Draisaitl to outperform expected goals for because he is a great playmaker and arguably the best shooter in the league.

His individual scoring numbers look better as well. Ranks are where he would rank among the 360 forwards whose 5-on-5 ice time matches or exceeds his 364 minutes without 97 this season:

0.99 goals/60 (63rd)
0.66 primary assists/60 (123rd)
1.65 primary points/60 (79th)
1.15 secondary assists/60 (1st)
2.80 points/60 (10th)

While this is definitely good, and a marked improvement on what he's done in the past, it's tough to say how good it really is because such a large portion of his points in this small sample come from secondary assists. While I don't consider the secondary assist entirely worthless like some people do, it's clearly worth less than primary points, and I think you have to agree that this is a pretty insane rate of secondary assists that won't be sustained. It's possible that his primary scoring rates could increase as his secondary assist rates drop, but right now, neither the goal nor the primary assist rates in this very small sample are especially high.

What I want to see from Draisaitl, to make me really concede anything, is not going to be one good or bad game. I know he's a very talented player capable of having good games. What I want to see is a full season's worth of top-flight results playing at 5-on-5. And for the record, I'm not even saying he can't do that. I think it's very possible that he could, under the right circumstances. And I would be happy if he actually did it, because then I could just say "yeah, he's an elite #1C now" and be done with it. Instead, I still see posts like this, with 22 likes:



And when I say "hey, this is completely false" and provide the truth, people get mad at me, and start constructing straw man arguments against me, even when I never did anything other than respond to a blatant lie.

Lastly, has his line really been the "hottest in hockey for 7 weeks"? I'd very much like you to substantiate that.

I used to try and read your posts because its obvious you put a lot of time into them, but I can't anymore. You're doubling down on your already wrong opinion which devalues any other opinions you have.

 

[Skinnyjimmy08]

It's so entertaining to read posters still reaching for anything at all to attempt to downplay what Draisaitl is doing lol

 

[Frank Drebin]

It's so entertaining to read posters still reaching for anything at all to attempt to downplay what Draisaitl is doing lol

Imagine posting over and over dumb opinions that you deep down know are incorrect, just because you don't want to believe the opposite.

 

[Darkwinter]

not at all but why come to this site and post something so stupid ?? were you not loved as a child and need the attention of strangers.or is it that you think you can get your 5 minutes of fame by posting (i hope the oilers miss the playoff ) .i am going to give you some sound advice .....there is a big world out there .leave your mommy and daddy's basement and put away your ps 2 and go enjoy life instead of being a computer troll.

 

[Henkka]

Since Yamamoto was called up near the end of December (15 games played):

Drai
28 points (+7)
Nuge
21 points (+10)
Yama
14 PTS (+12)
Oilers
10-3-2

Not a bad pickup this Yamamoto kid on my keeper league.

 

[onetweasy]

Oh, I know exactly why people incessantly mock me about my John Carlson thread and why they do it about Draisaitl. It's because they completely fail to properly comprehend the argument that I'm making, they don't like the idea of looking at anything beyond raw points, or they don't like the idea that we can quantify a player's defensive impact on the game and hold poor defensive players such as Carlson/Draisaitl accountable. Often times, all of these things. And I don't care, ever, I just find it disappointing, and wish people would respond to the arguments that I actually make, and consider a different perspective.

I'm well aware that most teams who lead in the third period of an important game tighten up and stop taking chances. This is a well-researched phenomenon, and new research from Micah McCurdy suggests that this is mostly driven by the leading team hanging back, rather than the trailing team pushing harder. It has been well studied enough that there is a baseline level of what share of play that a team controls based on what their lead is, and score-adjusted numbers look at a player's number relative to that baseline, rather than the baseline of 50% that raw numbers used.

When shown Draisaitl's numbers last season when McDavid was sick/suspended, I said something to the effect of "great, but a lot of this comes from the power play, and these still don't look so great over the course of the full season or the last few full seasons."

This season, his on-ice numbers away from 97 certainly do look better.

Oilers with Draisaitl, without McDavid: 47.96% CF, 51.35% GF, 48.97% xGF
Oilers without Draisaitl or McDavid: 48.03% CF, 39.80% GF, 49.09% xGF

Still a slight drag on CF% and xGF%, but negligibly so, and more importantly, his offense clearly out-weighs his mediocre play driving, as evidenced by the GF%, which is driven by outperforming expected goals for and not goaltending. And I fully expect Draisaitl to outperform expected goals for because he is a great playmaker and arguably the best shooter in the league.

His individual scoring numbers look better as well. Ranks are where he would rank among the 360 forwards whose 5-on-5 ice time matches or exceeds his 364 minutes without 97 this season:

0.99 goals/60 (63rd)
0.66 primary assists/60 (123rd)
1.65 primary points/60 (79th)
1.15 secondary assists/60 (1st)
2.80 points/60 (10th)

While this is definitely good, and a marked improvement on what he's done in the past, it's tough to say how good it really is because such a large portion of his points in this small sample come from secondary assists. While I don't consider the secondary assist entirely worthless like some people do, it's clearly worth less than primary points, and I think you have to agree that this is a pretty insane rate of secondary assists that won't be sustained. It's possible that his primary scoring rates could increase as his secondary assist rates drop, but right now, neither the goal nor the primary assist rates in this very small sample are especially high.

What I want to see from Draisaitl, to make me really concede anything, is not going to be one good or bad game. I know he's a very talented player capable of having good games. What I want to see is a full season's worth of top-flight results playing at 5-on-5. And for the record, I'm not even saying he can't do that. I think it's very possible that he could, under the right circumstances. And I would be happy if he actually did it, because then I could just say "yeah, he's an elite #1C now" and be done with it. Instead, I still see posts like this, with 22 likes:



And when I say "hey, this is completely false" and provide the truth, people get mad at me, and start constructing straw man arguments against me, even when I never did anything other than respond to a blatant lie.

Lastly, has his line really been the "hottest in hockey for 7 weeks"? I'd very much like you to substantiate that.

Get some fresh air.

 

[CupofOil]

Yes, Draisaitl is a great player who scores a lot of points. In response to people misrepresenting my opinions, I've probably said this more than anybody else who isn't an Oilers fan.

However, he is poor defensively and he struggles at 5-on-5 when Connor McDavid is not on the ice. One secondary assist at 5-on-5 without McDavid doesn't change that.

 

[Kranix]

Well that didn’t happen now did it?

OOOOOoooohhh

 

[OiledUp]

Leon should start a line of clothes or scents or whatever called Leon-Product of McDavid(™)

 

[HockeyGuy1975]

McDavid is the best player in the NHL because he is elite in everything aspect... mental and physical.

However, in my opinion, Draisaitl has a higher hockey IQ.

 

[Wulfgar]

McDavid is a product of Draisaitl

 

[KidLine93]

Rough morning for @JoeThorntonsRooster . Guy probably had nightmares of Drai's 4 point night last night

 

[Frank Drebin]

not at all but why come to this site and post something so stupid ?? were you not loved as a child and need the attention of strangers.or is it that you think you can get your 5 minutes of fame by posting (i hope the oilers miss the playoff ) .i am going to give you some sound advice .....there is a big world out there .leave your mommy and daddy's basement and put away your ps 2 and go enjoy life instead of being a computer troll.

some posters are just twerps, don't take the bait