Where will Leon Draisaitl rank all-time by the end of his career?

[McNuge]

So since there is nothing Draisatal can do about the health of McDavid we are going to discount him when he really stepped it up when McDavid did go down?

Doesn't really sound like a strong argument to me.

People also seem to forget that after McDavid got hurt in his rookie season Drai got called up and was unreal in what was essentially his rookie season. Finished the year second in points on the team.

 

[Video Nasty]

People also seem to forget that after McDavid got hurt in his rookie season Drai got called up and was unreal in what was essentially his rookie season. Finished the year second in points on the team.

This checks out. During the 37 game stretch that McDavid missed, Drai had 12 goals and 18 assists for 30 points. The Oilers scored 86 goals during that stretch.

26-27 goals/66-67 points/82 games and generating 34.9% of the team's offense seems pretty good.

People either forget or they don't want to take a few minutes to think about it before they post their mindless take.

 

[ChaoticOrange]

Let's assume the following

Draisaitl plays 10 more seasons (brings him to 37)
His career points/game is 1.16, including his earlier lower scoring seasons, so let's assume that stays about the same.
He's been very healthy, so let's say he plays 95% of the games the rest of the way.

779 games, 904 points, added to his current 744 points, would have him at 1648 for his career, or 9th all time, likely 3rd highest European scorer ever (assuming Ovi gets there before he retires)

 

[McFlash97]

There fixed it for you

1. Leon Draisaitl

2. Moritz Seider
3. that ottawa guy
4. Uwe Krupp
5. Hingle McCringleberry
6. Kccccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhh
7. The dude from Rammstein
8. Literally Hitler
9. Whoever shot Archduke Ferdinand (no wait they were Serbian)
10. Christian Ehrhoff

There fixed for you

 

[Video Nasty]

Let's assume the following

Draisaitl plays 10 more seasons (brings him to 37)
His career points/game is 1.16, including his earlier lower scoring seasons, so let's assume that stays about the same.
He's been very healthy, so let's say he plays 95% of the games the rest of the way.

779 games, 904 points, added to his current 744 points, would have him at 1648 for his career, or 9th all time, likely 3rd highest European scorer ever (assuming Ovi gets there before he retires)

Small amendment. Crosby, Ovechkin, and McDavid would all have more by that point, so he would be 12th all time rather than 9th in this hypothetical.

Personally, I'd go more pessimistic with my own projections for 10 more seasons. I'd slide down to 700 games @ 1.10 or 20th all time assuming McDavid is inside it and someone on the outskirts right now like Kane doesn't.

 

[Tufted Titmouse]

He will finish top 10 in temper tantrums

 

[daver]

I agree as it should be mentioned about as much as the narrative of Leon is a product of Connor which is what many hint at.

Leon is flat out a superstar in his own right.

Which always begs the question as to why the Oilers cannot ice an elite Top 6 with McDavid and Draisaitl separated. This is a weakness come playoff time and it is a an issue for the past seven seasons or so.

One of them must be not able to carry a line on their own.

 

[wetcoast]

Which always begs the question as to why the Oilers cannot ice an elite Top 6 with McDavid and Draisaitl separated. This is a weakness come playoff time and it is a an issue for the past seven seasons or so.

So exactly who are the top 6 players that the Oilers have besides RNH?

Evander Kane, some of the time, Hyman who is a top 6 specialist complimentary player.

One of them must be not able to carry a line on their own.

Such faulty logic here.

Both McDavid and Leon are true superstars to suggest otherwise is absurd.

 

[McVespa99]

One thing that will hurt Draisaitl is, despite gaudy playoff, he collapses in the important games.

In the last 5 games of the Vegas series, when the team needed him to be a star, he no showed. 3 points in 5 games. -6

McDavid, his semi regular linemate, had 8 points in 5 games and was -1.

The raw numbers this year look great. Actually watching the games, he looked atrocious and was the biggest cause in the Oilers getting eliminated.

Lame and untrue take. Be better

 

[daver]

So exactly who are the top 6 players that the Oilers have besides RNH?

Evander Kane, some of the time, Hyman who is a top 6 specialist complimentary player.

Great players produce regardless of the quality of their linemates. The "they have noone to play with" excuse is going on 7 years.

Do you truly believe that Draisaitl is the clear #2 in the league if he doesn't have McDavid on his line for most of his career?

We simply don't know how he would fare in a vacuum, unlike Crosby, Malkin, Sakic, Forsberg, Yzerman and Federov, because of the tie to McDavid.

I don't have him being ranked as his raw numbers would indicate.

 

[daver]

Such faulty logic here.

Both McDavid and Leon are true superstars to suggest otherwise is absurd.

To suggest a player's numbers may be inflated due to playing the majority of his time with a player who is arguably a Top 5 offensive talent all-time is absurd?

Apologies for the lack of creativity, but your response is absurb.

 

[Machinehead]

Where do you rank Ron Francis? I think that's the best comparison.

Francis' numbers absolutely jump off the page as Draisaitl's are likely to as well by the time he's done. Despite that, because of who he played with, the era he played in, and the lack of individual hardware (Darisaitl has a Hart, but let's be honest, one Hart doesn't move the needle that much in a top 100 discussion), his all-time ranking doesn't track with his statistics.

That's the feeling I get with Draisaitl.

 

[Regal]

Where do you rank Ron Francis? I think that's the best comparison.

Francis' numbers absolutely jump off the page as Draisaitl's are likely to as well by the time he's done. Despite that, because of who he played with, the era he played in, and the lack of individual hardware (Darisaitl has a Hart, but let's be honest, one Hart doesn't move the needle that much in a top 100 discussion), his all-time ranking doesn't track with his statistics.

That's the feeling I get with Draisaitl.

With Francis though, his career numbers jump off the page, but his season to season numbers don’t. He had 3 top 5 point finishes, never higher than 4th, and no individual awards other than one Selke. Draisaitl already had 5 top 5 point finishes in a row, including an Art Ross and two runner ups, as well as a Hart and Pearson.

I think Draisaitl seems destined to get the Esposito treatment. His ranking will depend heavily on how much credit he gets relative to his better teammate, and because of that it will be wildly different depending on the person.

 

[WaW]

Hate to get all scientific on you here, but he'll rank somewhere in between the McDavid/Crosby tier and the Drake Berehowsky/Chad Kilger tier.

 

[SillyRabbit]

People saying top 20… do you even know who’s in the top 20?

The History of Hockey forum, the place where people can actually name all of the great players in NHL history, have Yzerman as 40 (and that’s from 5 years ago prior to McDavid vaulting ahead).

So if Yzerman is outside of the top 40, how would Draisaitl be top 20?

 

[Connor McConnor]

People saying top 20… do you even know who’s in the top 20?

The History of Hockey forum, the place where people can actually name all of the great players in NHL history, have Yzerman as 40 (and that’s from 5 years ago prior to McDavid vaulting ahead).

So if Yzerman is outside of the top 40, how would Draisaitl be top 20?

A person under 35-40 will have a much different top 25 than a person above 35-40.

 

[jigglysquishy]

A person under 35-40 will have a much different top 25 than a person above 35-40.

This isn't really the case amongst learned fans. The biggest pre 1920s fans are in their 30s.

The HoH lists don't have a birth year bias, but everyone is well informed on the history of the sport.

 

[wetcoast]

Great players produce regardless of the quality of their linemates. The "they have noone to play with" excuse is going on 7 years.

Do you truly believe that Draisaitl is the clear #2 in the league if he doesn't have McDavid on his line for most of his career?

We simply don't know how he would fare in a vacuum, unlike Crosby, Malkin, Sakic, Forsberg, Yzerman and Federov, because of the tie to McDavid.

I don't have him being ranked as his raw numbers would indicate.

In 19-20 when McDavid went down Draisaitl excelled.

Also in 16-17 in the playoffs Leon was much better than McDavid but I guess some guys want to see McDavid go down for a longer stretch or something?

To suggest a player's numbers may be inflated due to playing the majority of his time with a player who is arguably a Top 5 offensive talent all-time is absurd?

Apologies for the lack of creativity, but your response is absurb.

No what's absurd is your suggestion that Leon can't carry his own line when above we have 2 such examples of him doing so in high pressure situations.

 

[wetcoast]

A person under 35-40 will have a much different top 25 than a person above 35-40.

I think that everyone has a different list but I'll get back to that in a moment.

This isn't really the case amongst learned fans. The biggest pre 1920s fans are in their 30s.

to the part in bold, where exactly is this information from?

The HoH lists don't have a birth year bias, but everyone is well informed on the history of the sport.

Probably no birth year bias but there is a pretty obvious SC winner bias on the lists which does favor players before expansion somewhat.

Also the HOH section does have a core group that does their ATD so whatever biases come from there might be hard to drop in an all time list discussion at times.

Let's also face the facts here 3 people watching any hockey game separately are probably going to list 5 or 6 guys independently for the 3 star selection (this is often the case with in house radio and a different TV crews selections) so there is always going to be a lot of subjectivity comparing players from amateur pre professional hockey never mind forward pass and other major changes in the sport, ie European influences and impact starting in the late 60s to the current day.

Usually the biggest factor is each players individual resume and right now Leon has an all time great regular season and playoff resume at age 27 and is still going strong.

 

[Connor McConnor]

This isn't really the case amongst learned fans. The biggest pre 1920s fans are in their 30s.

The HoH lists don't have a birth year bias, but everyone is well informed on the history of the sport.

Seems like you are speaking for a lot of people. I'm 30 and nobody in my friend group cares much about the 1920s

 

[jigglysquishy]

Seems like you are speaking for a lot of people. I'm 30 and nobody in my friend group cares much about the 1920s

That's why I used the term learned fans.

If you don't know anything about Russell Bowie or Milt Schmidt or Red Kelly or Slava Fetisov I don't expect informed rankings regarding them.

to the part in bold, where exactly is this information from?

The biggest fans of pre merger hockey in the HoH are all 30-45. It's only like 6 of us.

 

[wetcoast]

Seems like you are speaking for a lot of people. I'm 30 and nobody in my friend group cares much about the 1920s

This makes me wonder why participate in the current discussion then when it sounds like you have little interest beyond a certain time frame or am I misreading you here?

 

[Forgot About Drai]

I voted top 25 but after reading a few comments I changed my mind. I think more so 40-30 range is more attainable.

 

[nowhereman]

Seems like you are speaking for a lot of people. I'm 30 and nobody in my friend group cares much about the 1920s

That's because most fans don't have a very deep knowledge of hockey history. It's like film or music. Most younger people (and movie-goers in general) have no idea who Tarkovsky, Kubrick, or Ozu were or how important The Beatles, John Coltrane or DJ Kool Herc were to music and world culture. And that's fine, as people can still enjoy their hobbies without geeking out. But the people who really care to look beyond the myopic scope of their own era will have much greater context. I don't expect the average young hockey fan to know much about Shore, Kelly or Nighbor but that doesn't mean they need to be lost in the past.

 

[daver]

In 19-20 when McDavid went down Draisaitl excelled.

Also in 16-17 in the playoffs Leon was much better than McDavid but I guess some guys want to see McDavid go down for a longer stretch or something?

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Over a six game sample, Draisaitl was at a 2.00 PPG. That puts him on Wayne/Mario level. Are you saying that if you put Draisaitl on another team without McDavid he is even better than McDavid?

And what are you trying to say about 16/17? That a 20 year old McDavid was at his best and Draisaitl was better?

What most people want to see is how Draisaitl would do on a team that isn't focused on run and gun with one of the best players in NHL history to lead that type of offense on his line for the majority of the time.

IMO, he is rated as being in the group for 2nd best player in the world with Kucherov, Mac and Matthews, and fuller seasons and great playoff production put him arguably at the top of that group. In a historical sense, he is outside the Top 50/3rd tier level (Sakic, Trottier, Yzerman). He may get there with raw production, or at least ahead of Malkin/Forsberg, but this doesn't mean he was the better player as his raw numbers would suggest.