Player Discussion Leon "Dr Drai" Draisaitl: The Next Episode

[McJC]

I don't see RNH as part of this team long term, two years maximum if Drai and McDavid work out. Last year Drai came in with only RNH to compete with for a top spot, his spot was pretty much there for him. This year he saw that spot taken away because of McDavid, feeling slighted at being ignored despite his remarkable play in the WHL, he has risen to give RNH a run for his money for a top 6 role, if he can continue to dominate then RNH will be expendable.

Can't have RNH on a 3rd line and making 6 million.

Why does he need to be on the 3rd line? Centres can transition to wing rather seamlessly. Injuries are always apart of the game and if one of McDavid/Draisaitl go down, you'll always have Nuge there to fill the void.

Though, if a legitimate #1 defenseman happens to be on the market and the asking price is Nuge, I'd personally drive him to the airport. Only problem is, defensemen like that rarely are ever available.

 

[tiger_80]

I don't see RNH as part of this team long term, two years maximum if Drai and McDavid work out. Last year Drai came in with only RNH to compete with for a top spot, his spot was pretty much there for him. This year he saw that spot taken away because of McDavid, feeling slighted at being ignored despite his remarkable play in the WHL, he has risen to give RNH a run for his money for a top 6 role, if he can continue to dominate then RNH will be expendable.

Can't have RNH on a 3rd line and making 6 million.

yakupov will get traded before rnh and eberle. rnh can be 2c and draisaitl can play on the rw. if yakupov/eberle is gone i want a physical 2-3rw who can score 30-40 points and be solid defensively. someone like pouliot or grittier purcell.

 

[McDynasty]

Except Draisaitl will play center, why would you want him to play winger when he can become a exceptional centerman in this league. Eventually, in 2-3 years you will have to pay him and McDavid. There just won't be room for three high payed centerman.

 

[McDynasty]

Why does he need to be on the 3rd line? Centres can transition to wing rather seamlessly. Injuries are always apart of the game and if one of McDavid/Draisaitl go down, you'll always have Nuge there to fill the void.

Though, if a legitimate #1 defenseman happens to be on the market and the asking price is Nuge, I'd personally drive him to the airport. Only problem is, defensemen like that rarely are ever available.

Something like a Jossi or Jones I would seriously consider it. This team would hugely improve with someone like them, But I think the timing is not right, We still need RNH for another two years at least. I think it would be fantastic to see the Jones brothers on our blueline with Klef and Nurse.

 

[StoveTopStauffer]

I wonder if this is part of the McDavid effect. We saw the same thing with Wayne Gretzky here. Everybody wanting to do everything possible to be better players as something special and getting to play on a team with generational greats. (also Hall)

People forget that prior to Gretz Mess was a straight up and down physical winger with not all that much scoring ability. he honed and worked on his skillsets relentlessly turning himself into a 50 goal scorer. Mess always had amazing drive though. But a lot of players on that club got better and passionately wanted to get better.

Some intelligent players are realizing that they want to be part of something special here. Drai was very upset by reports being sent down this year. The team talked to him at length about it. He needed to know he was going to be on this club. He played the whole prospects games and preseasons games with the intent to be the best Oiler leaving nothing to chance.

Nurse and klef will also elevate their games.

I always knew Drai was gonna be either the best or close to the best of his draft class. Thing about Drai that a lot of people discounted was that he didn't develop in Canada. He basically came from the German system later in age and started dominating quickly. While most of the rest of his peers developed in far superior hockey systems.

He gon be good.

 

[Spawn]

Except Draisaitl will play center, why would you want him to play winger when he can become a exceptional centerman in this league. Eventually, in 2-3 years you will have to pay him and McDavid. There just won't be room for three high payed centerman.

Sure there will be, especially when we have zero depth in the organization to fill in for one of these guys should we trade them away. Lander certainly is proving he isn't cut out to be a 3rd line center. Letestu isn't either. No one else in the organization realistically projects to be one. Guys like Yakimov/Khaira are more likely to be 4th liners than they are to bring the offense you'd want out of a 3rd line center.

The Kings had Kopitar/Carter/Richards all making big bucks for their two cup wins. The Sharks have 4 centers making 6+ million. The Bruins did it with Krejci/Bergeron/Seguin (before stupidly trading him for depth, which hopefully Chiarelli wont make that same mistake here).

I said this in the PGT last night, but your 4th best forward on a team can be making $6 million. And if thats what RNH ended up becoming, that wouldn't be a huge issue.

 

[McFlyingV]

Sure there will be, especially when we have zero depth in the organization to fill in for one of these guys should we trade them away. Lander certainly is proving he isn't cut out to be a 3rd line center. Letestu isn't either. No one else in the organization realistically projects to be one. Guys like Yakimov/Khaira are more likely to be 4th liners than they are to bring the offense you'd want out of a 3rd line center.

The Kings had Kopitar/Carter/Richards all making big bucks for their two cup wins. The Sharks have 4 centers making 6+ million. The Bruins did it with Krejci/Bergeron/Seguin (before stupidly trading him for depth, which hopefully Chiarelli wont make that same mistake here).

I said this in the PGT last night, but your 4th best forward on a team can be making $6 million. And if thats what RNH ended up becoming, that wouldn't be a huge issue.

Completely agree. I think the only reason you'd want to trade Nuge is if he can bring back a significantly better dman than Eberle or Yak (i.e. a top 20-30 D in the league signed long term). I think the chance of a D like that becoming available is slim, and therefore we'd be better off trading Eberle or Yak with an add for a D who isn't quite that good. I'd love to keep both Eberle and Yak also, but I think one of them will probably have to go eventually unless we are somehow able to get Yak signed long-term at something around 4 mil (assuming he keeps meshing with McDavid or even with Draisaitl and Hall and can be a 50-60 point guy).

Either way I think people are just being a little impatient with the situation. I understand that people want to see our D get better, but in reality they aren't that far off if we can add another very good top 4 D. Klefbom and Nurse both look to be trending towards top pairing D in time, and Sekera after a rough start has really settled down and is looking like a good #3. If everyone would just take a step back and look at the big picture, they'd realize that if Nurse and Klefbom develop into what we think they can, then having 3 centres who may very well all be #1 quality centres (or at least top 30 in the NHL) will be extremely valuable to this team.

I think you also need to look at the play styles of those 3 players and their projections. McDavid gives you the elite generational offence who can drive the play, create numerous chances off the rush, creates turn over after turn over in the neutral zone, and can be good in his own zone. Draisaitl gives you a guy who should be a beast in the face-off circle who gives us a dominant player that can protect the puck and cycle down low, has elite vision and passing, and a very good 2-way game when it comes to breaking up plays. Then you have RNH who while he may never be a stud on the faceoff, he has at least improved to the point where he's not a total liability anymore, and he plays such a smart game, is good on the forecheck and pressuring in the offensive zones, creates lots of turnovers by picking off passes and stripping players, and then just has above average-to good skating, shooting, and playmaking. Being able to have 3 different guys who play different styles at centre, but who all have or will have strong 2-way games will make this team much stronger up front than keeping both Eberle and Yak will.

 

[Zaddy]

Completely agree. I think the only reason you'd want to trade Nuge is if he can bring back a significantly better dman than Eberle or Yak (i.e. a top 20-30 D in the league signed long term). I think the chance of a D like that becoming available is slim, and therefore we'd be better off trading Eberle or Yak with an add for a D who isn't quite that good. I'd love to keep both Eberle and Yak also, but I think one of them will probably have to go eventually unless we are somehow able to get Yak signed long-term at something around 4 mil (assuming he keeps meshing with McDavid or even with Draisaitl and Hall and can be a 50-60 point guy).

Either way I think people are just being a little impatient with the situation. I understand that people want to see our D get better, but in reality they aren't that far off if we can add another very good top 4 D. Klefbom and Nurse both look to be trending towards top pairing D in time, and Sekera after a rough start has really settled down and is looking like a good #3. If everyone would just take a step back and look at the big picture, they'd realize that if Nurse and Klefbom develop into what we think they can, then having 3 centres who may very well all be #1 quality centres (or at least top 30 in the NHL) will be extremely valuable to this team.

I think you also need to look at the play styles of those 3 players and their projections. McDavid gives you the elite generational offence who can drive the play, create numerous chances off the rush, creates turn over after turn over in the neutral zone, and can be good in his own zone. Draisaitl gives you a guy who should be a beast in the face-off circle who gives us a dominant player that can protect the puck and cycle down low, has elite vision and passing, and a very good 2-way game when it comes to breaking up plays. Then you have RNH who while he may never be a stud on the faceoff, he has at least improved to the point where he's not a total liability anymore, and he plays such a smart game, is good on the forecheck and pressuring in the offensive zones, creates lots of turnovers by picking off passes and stripping players, and then just has above average-to good skating, shooting, and playmaking. Being able to have 3 different guys who play different styles at centre, but who all have or will have strong 2-way games will make this team much stronger up front than keeping both Eberle and Yak will.

Good post, agreed. I would be very interested to see Nuge moved to the wing actually. Seems much more fitting for the type of player that he has become. Maybe that will ease his burden a little bit too and he can produce more offensively. I would really like to try him out there anyway. If we move him or Drai to the wing that would actually make one of Yak/Eberle expendable. Also, if we keep our 1st round pick this year we're likely to get a very good young RW too. I like the future of this team. Thank you based Drai for the options you have given us.

 

[Stoneman89]

Except Draisaitl will play center, why would you want him to play winger when he can become a exceptional centerman in this league. Eventually, in 2-3 years you will have to pay him and McDavid. There just won't be room for three high payed centerman.

Because having extra centres playing wing is the smart thing to do, if you are able. Way easier to have a centre go back to his original position if there are injuries than the other way around, as the Oilers have painfully found out all these years. At one point in Boston, Chia had 5 natural centres playing on his top 6, so it appears that is the way he thinks. You can never have too many competent centres.

 

[Mr Positive]

Drai must play center. It's been core to his identity since he was drafted, and that was in fact one of the biggest features about his game that made him attractive to us instead of Bennett. Bennett plays center too, but players like Bennett and Duchene have some winger mentality to them. They are players made to play anywhere.

Draisaitl's core feature is that he sees the ice exceptionally well and has excellent awareness of his teammates, and of course the passing skill to take advantage of that. Playing center ice uses his skills to their maximum. On the wing he has less ice to work with. On the Oilers, we NEED that big center presence. Put Drai on the wing and he turns into another Pouliot. Great player, but that's not what we need now.

I think the plan for when all three of Drai, RNH and McDavid are healthy is to put McDavid on the wing for now. He is bad at faceoffs and an upper body injury this year would not have helped that. Of course the long term plan is to have McDavid play center, and we can still have him rotating a center spot with Draisaitl or RNH this season, but we can put off our team decisions to this offseason regarding how we build this depth chart long term. Guys like McDavid and Draisaitl are simply too young and inexperienced for us to make firm decisions based around them just yet, and I don't see why we would want to anyway.

 

[rasarhdasd]

10 games of a guy shooting 35% and people are ready to move on from RNH. *sigh*

 

[OnTheBrink]

Drai must play center. It's been core to his identity since he was drafted, and that was in fact one of the biggest features about his game that made him attractive to us instead of Bennett. Bennett plays center too, but players like Bennett and Duchene have some winger mentality to them. They are players made to play anywhere.

Draisaitl's core feature is that he sees the ice exceptionally well and has excellent awareness of his teammates, and of course the passing skill to take advantage of that. Playing center ice uses his skills to their maximum. On the wing he has less ice to work with. On the Oilers, we NEED that big center presence. Put Drai on the wing and he turns into another Pouliot. Great player, but that's not what we need now.

I think the plan for when all three of Drai, RNH and McDavid are healthy is to put McDavid on the wing for now. He is bad at faceoffs and an upper body injury this year would not have helped that. Of course the long term plan is to have McDavid play center, and we can still have him rotating a center spot with Draisaitl or RNH this season, but we can put off our team decisions to this offseason regarding how we build this depth chart long term. Guys like McDavid and Draisaitl are simply too young and inexperienced for us to make firm decisions based around them just yet, and I don't see why we would want to anyway.

Agree with most of what you said and have all along said trade a winger before a center, would much rather have 3 centers in our top 6 and only 3 natural wingers. I would try and package Yak + for a top 4 Dman in his mid 20's. I think that a core of...

Hall - Draisaitl - Pouliot
McD/Nuge - Nuge/McD - Eberle

Or

Hall - RNH - Draisaitl
Pouliot - McDavid - Eberle


Klefbom - D from trade
Nurse - Sekera
Reinhart

That is a legit cup contending core if Klefbom, Nurse and Draisaitl keep trending the way that they are.

 

[MoneyGuy]

I'm bewildered that people can't see the logic in playing Drai on the wing. We have two of the best centres in the league and Drai is outstanding on the wing. If we get an injury at centre move him in, otherwise status quo.

 

[Replacement*]

I'm bewildered that people can't see the logic in playing Drai on the wing. We have two of the best centres in the league and Drai is outstanding on the wing. If we get an injury at centre move him in, otherwise status quo.

This is the WC. Big Centers tend to do better in this conference. Drai brings an element whereby he is much harder to play against, a much more dominant D, in a physical conference.

I like the idea of eventually moving Nuge to wing.

But we need to see Drai all season to see what kind of sustain we got here. For sure he doesn't score as many goals as he has thus far but if Drai can continue to battle on the boards and play 200ft like he has and work some magic with Hall that's more than enough.

For the first time really we have the right chemistry of Center playing with Hall. We're seeing what the results look like with Hall suddenly top 4 in scoring.

 

[McDeathbyCheerios*]

This is the WC. Big Centers tend to do better in this conference. Drai brings an element whereby he is much harder to play against, a much more dominant D, in a physical conference.

I like the idea of eventually moving Nuge to wing.

But we need to see Drai all season to see what kind of sustain we got here. For sure he doesn't score as many goals as he has thus far but if Drai can continue to battle on the boards and play 200ft like he has and work some magic with Hall that's more than enough.

For the first time really we have the right chemistry of Center playing with Hall. We're seeing what the results look like with Hall suddenly top 4 in scoring.

Drai works well on the wing I agree with them on that however, Drai is already as good if not better than RNH at faceoffs. And in a possession style game that we are trying to play, winning faceoffs is key. I mean I guess RNH can play "center" on the line and just have Drai take all his faceoffs for him but that doesn't make much sense imo.

Hall - Drai - Purcell
RNH - McDavid - Eberle

Will probably be our top 6 at some point this year.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

People seem to be forgetting how dominant the Hall-RNH-Draisaitl line was. RNH took care of the dirty work and the centers defensive responsibilities while Hall and Leon got up ice in a hurry.

Hall-RNH-Draisaitl
Pouliot-McDavid-Eberle
Slepyshev (in time)-?-Yakupov

 

[McDynasty]

10 games of a guy shooting 35% and people are ready to move on from RNH. *sigh*

Did you actually read anyone's posts? No one is wanting to part ways with RNH, it's just in a few years we will have to do something because of the cap.

 

[Alberta]

Drai works well on the wing I agree with them on that however, Drai is already as good if not better than RNH at faceoffs. And in a possession style game that we are trying to play, winning faceoffs is key. I mean I guess RNH can play "center" on the line and just have Drai take all his faceoffs for him but that doesn't make much sense imo.

Hall - Drai - Purcell
RNH - McDavid - Eberle

Will probably be our top 6 at some point this year.

I would think that McDavid needs more help with having someone take draws for him than RNH.

That said, why not three lines?

Hall - Draisaitl - Purcell
Pouliot - RNH - Eberle
Hendricks - McDavid - Yakupov

I think that going with three lines like this would give teams fits and Hendricks could take McDavid's draws in key situations. We know McDavid and Yakupov play well together and we know the other two lines are also effective.

 

[tabs]

I would think that McDavid needs more help with having someone take draws for him than RNH.

That said, why not three lines?

Hall - Draisaitl - Purcell
Pouliot - RNH - Eberle
Hendricks - McDavid - Yakupov

I think that going with three lines like this would give teams fits and Hendricks could take McDavid's draws in key situations. We know McDavid and Yakupov play well together and we know the other two lines are also effective.

I really hope we can see this later on this year with everyone being healthy. I'm very curious to see if we can be shut down having three lines like that going. Giving the RNH line third pairing dmen would be very interesting.

 

[McShogun99]

10 games of a guy shooting 35% and people are ready to move on from RNH. *sigh*

So if his shooting % goes down to 12% isn't that only like 3 less goals so far. 14 points in 10 games would still be pretty good. Obviously it would be very hard to even keep a PPG pace but I could see Drai finishing the season with 60 points.

 

[McIce Whole]

Why not keep Drai and shift him to wing and trade Eberle instead of RNH. Both Ebs and RNH make the same but we have more options by keeping Drai on the wing.

 

[Oi'll say!]

10 games of a guy shooting 35%

No one is judging Drai based solely on his goal scoring so that's a straw man argument.

He's been excellent along the boards, carrying the puck, defensively, and he's the best passer on the team forehand and backhand.

and people are ready to move on from RNH. *sigh*

In a way it's sad but it's also a big step fwd from when I was in my teens and the Oilers started trading players away and none of the fans could accept the economic reality of the situation. People here understand now that you just can't keep 10 superstars together anymore and they can anticipate these kinds of things instead of being blindsided by them.

RNH is like a centrepiece for most teams in the league and he's becoming a 3rd wheel here. The oilers have a big need on the blueline. I'm ok with a scenario where the no stays, but Drai, mcJ and Hall are the front runners for immovable right now. If RNH stays and Drai goes it's probably because Drai has more trade value.

 

[GRadio]

McDavid is JayZ

Yakupov is Lil Jon

Nurse is DMX

Are you saying they aren't talented?

 

[Fourier]

I'm bewildered that people can't see the logic in playing Drai on the wing. We have two of the best centres in the league and Drai is outstanding on the wing. If we get an injury at centre move him in, otherwise status quo.

I feel the same way. Moreover, the Oilers have a coach who built an offense around 5 centers in the top 6. Even now, Pavelski is leading San Jose in scoring and is just under a ppg playing RW on a line with Thornton as the center.

And for the record, they got Brent Burns and an early second for an expendable winger, a late first and a prospect.

Chia also had a team with multiple centers being used on the wing. Plus when the brain trust gets together and builds Team Canada how many centers do they typically pick? Team Canada in 2014 had 8 centers on their roster excluding Benn who has played in the middle a lot in his career. They do this because typically centers can be very successful on the wing while center depth is crucial for winning.

 

[possesthepuck]

Come off it, most of you would have traded him because who needs 3 great centers.. Hes so much better than Nuge its not even funny.