Wednesday November 24th 2021
Draisaitl and “a lot of euphoria”
And Wayne Gretzky says hello every day
By Heiko Oldbod, Boston
Leon Draisaitl is the top scorer and top scorer in the NHL. His stats are so good that they can be compared to Wayne Gretzky’s. But Germany’s ice hockey star is not about individual data, but about team success with the Edmonton Oilers.
It’s been gone a long time – and yet it’s still ubiquitous. Wayne Gretzky left the Edmonton Oilers in the summer of 1988 for the Los Angeles Kings. But his aura and his legacy can still be felt and seen in the oil metropolis. In front of the main entrance to “Rogers Place” on 104th Avenue there is a life-size statue of “The Great One”. Gretzky raises the Stanley Cup. In 1984, 1985, 1987 and 1988 he had led the Oilers to the NHL championship. When he played his second season in LA, Edmonton won the title for the fifth and last time in 1990.
A few meters from the statue, replicas of the five cups can be seen in the Oilers’ hall of fame room. And also Gretzky’s locker from the championship season 1984 – with all the signatures of the players. In the hall, his legendary jersey hangs over the ice. His shirt number 99 is no longer used – not in Edmonton and not at the other 31 NHL clubs. Gretzky is now 60 years old. He ended his career in 1999. Many of his records are still unmatched – and will probably remain so forever.
Better start-up balance than once Gretzky
At the moment his name is used a little more often in Edmonton. And that’s a good sign for the Oilers. Because whenever things are going well for them, when they have a winning streak, comparisons are made with the data from Gretzky’s great Oilers teams of the eighties. It’s kind of the ultimate test. Sometimes he’s unfair. Because the Oilers of the eighties, which in addition to Gretzky also included actors like Jari Kurri, Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson and Granit Fuhr, were the ultimate in the league – the Oilers of the 2021/22 season are by no means. But at least they are on the way up. And the record of 9: 1 wins from the first ten games of the season was even the best in the club’s history.
Leon Draisaitl has therefore heard “very, very much euphoria” in the city, as he emphasized in an interview with n-tv. The people in Edmonton would notice, according to the Cologne resident, that the time for these Oilers would come in the next few years. The Edmontonians finally deserved more successful years again. What have you suffered since your last title 31 years ago. Only once, in 2006, were the Oilers really close to winning the championship. But they lost the decisive seventh game of the final series at the Carolina Hurricanes 1: 3.
Otherwise: a lot of disappointments, a lot of trouble. So many defeats. So few victories. The mood was often like a year-round, gray winter. Participation in the finals in 2006 was followed by ten seasons in a row without playoffs. Other clubs were looking forward to the knockout round in mid-April, but in Edmonton the ice has always been thawed. The NHL season was over.
But the years in the league cellar also had something positive. North America’s sporting leagues strive for parity. Every club should – at least in theory – have the chance to become champions. That is why the worst teams are always the first to have access to the best young players when it comes to the distribution of talent in a draft. Leon Draisaitl came to Edmonton in 2014 and Connor McDavid a year later.
Draisaitl doesn’t like comparisons with Gretzky
Both have been the preeminent Oilers actors for many years. Together they would do things on the ice that have not been seen in decades, it was recently said on ESPN. Captain McDavid is considered a talent of the century. His acceleration, his speed and his dribbling at top speed are in a class of their own. Draisaitl may not have the speed of McDavid, but knows how to use his body optimally to shield the puck.
His attacks with the backhand, often without eye contact with the targeted teammate, are what storm colleague Zach Hyman calls “unique in the league”. Oilers defender Darnell Nurse calls Draisaitl “the best passer in the world”. The slap shots from “Germany’s Sportsman of the Year” are just as dangerous and often untenable for the opposing goalkeepers, like those from superstar Alexander Ovetschkin (Washington Capitals).
There is currently no more accurate striker and no more diligent point collector in the league than Leon Draisaitl. In 18 games he has scored 18 goals and prepared 18 more. When he scored 17 times after 15 games and had a total of 33 points with his additional 16 assists, it was time to classify these values again. Put them on the scales. In other words: to compare them with the data of Wayne Gretzky. Lo and behold, Draisaitl is doing very respectably. Only once, in 1983/84, had Gretzky scored more goals in the first 15 games (19) and also collected more points than him in five seasons.
Draisaitl himself doesn’t like the parallels to probably the best player in ice hockey history. When Canadian journalists once gave him the nickname “The German Gretzky”, he smiled rather embarrassed than pleased. Draisaitl is playing his eighth NHL season. For years he has established himself among the best attackers in the best ice hockey league in the world. And he’s getting impatient. He is no longer concerned with his individual statistics. Rather, he wants to win the team success, so the Stanley Cup, so the 26-year-old.
In his opinion, Edmonton has more quality and flexibility this season, especially on the offensive. Nevertheless, after 18 of 82 preliminary round games, it is noticeable that the Oilers are still far too dependent on Draisaitl and McDavid in front of the opposing goal despite sensible reinforcements such as Zach Hyman, Warren Foegele and Derek Ryan. The two scored 30 of the 69 hits. With 36 and 32 points, they are in the first two places on the NHL scorer list – again. Just like in the past two years.
Since the beginning of the 2018/19 season, nobody in the league has scored more goals than Draisaitl (142) and nobody has collected more points than McDavid (350, Draisaitl is second with 335 points). In 2020 the Cologne-based “most valuable professional” (MVP), top scorer and, moreover, his teammates and opponents voted “outstanding actor”. McDavid received all of these honors last season. Even so, the Oilers only won one playoff series in the McDavid / Draisaitl era. And that was four years ago.
Expectations rise
Because in the knockout round is played harder, more uncompromising and still less whistled by the referees. Quality is important in this crucial phase of the season, but so is character. It shouldn’t be a problem for the Edmonton Oilers to qualify for the playoffs. But that is only the minimum goal. Nobody expects the title in the coming spring. But at least surviving a few laps – that would be something. Especially when you have two superstars in their prime.
Wayne Gretzky’s Edmonton Oilers have never won nine of their first ten games of the season. But they were victorious when it came down to it. In the playoffs in May and June. This is how the current players of the Edmonton Oilers are measured. And they are reminded of this every day when they come to work in “Rogers Place” – and see Gretzky’s statue and the replicas of the five Stanley Cups won.