Leon Draisaitl is 17th in league scoring right now - where does he finish the year?

[bobholly39]

Leon Draisaitl currently sits at 42 points in 35 games. Good enough for 17th in scoring. He also happens to be 17th for ppg.

We all know McDavid and Oilers started off the year very slow - but they have both rebounded since. McDavid is on an incredible run, he's averaging close to ~2.2 ppg since US thanksgiving. And Oilers are just about back in playoff positon now, or very close.

The surprising thing is Draisaitl's production has....not really improved. In fact, he seems to be doing worst now than he did to start the year.

Draisaitl:

First 15 games - 21 points.
Last 20 games - 21 points.

Despite a slow first half - he is technically only 8 points out of 5th place in league scoring as of this post, which is a 3-way tie at 50 points. And we know based on Draisaitl's body of work over the past ~5 years, he's often been good enough for #2 in league behind only McDavid in scoring. Does he have what it take to rise back up the rankings?

What's your prediction for the rest of the season? Where will Draisaitl finish in scoring?

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[jigglysquishy]

This season, Kucherov, Mackinnon, and McDavid are clearly playing a tier above him.

Barring injuries, he has a soft ceiling of 4.

Likely finishes somewhere in the 7-10 range.

 

[Play]

He’s not concerned with points, he’s concerned about shutting down the opponents top lines night in night out.

 

[Mr Kot]

I will say 6-10, he usually looks slow to start of the year but picks up as it goes on. Dont think he will hot top 5 this year however.

 

[Dion TheFluff]

I'll say he finishes with around 100 - 105 points baring injuries. Probably somewhere in-between like top 7 and top 12.

 

[Dion TheFluff]

He’s not concerned with points, he’s concerned about shutting down the opponents top lines night in night out.

well he better start improving at that if that's his role now because on the Oilers he's 4th last in 5v5 XGA/60 and 3rd last in GA/60.

 

[SillyRabbit]

Can't imagine him finishing outside of the top 10.

 

[Mr Positive]

His line has been on fire lately. Earlier in the season he was getting leftovers for wingers as no coach wants to split up that red hot top line. Basically once the coach stopped forcing Brown and Kane to play with Drai he's been unlocked. McLeod and Foegele can skate and that's helped.

Also our PP has just recently awoken. Most of these recent winning streak wins have been built on even strength. Drai will clean up on the PP for the rest of the year

 

[wetcoast]

This season, Kucherov, Mackinnon, and McDavid are clearly playing a tier above him.

Barring injuries, he has a soft ceiling of 4.

Likely finishes somewhere in the 7-10 range.

Came here to say something like this.

 

[34]

he won’t crack the top 20.

 

[Connor McConnor]

Playing with Brown and Kane will inevitably dampen your numbers. I wonder if any other superstar centres has played with worse linemates so far this season. Even Foegele and McLeod for how great they are playing are high end 3rd liners.

 

[Svencouver]

Playing with Brown and Kane will inevitably dampen your numbers. I wonder if any other superstar centres has played with worse linemates so far this season. Even Foegele and McLeod for how great they are playing are high end 3rd liners.

Pettersson has been playing with a rotating cast of underperforming wingers all season

 

[TheOrangeDesk]

Pettersson has been playing with a rotating cast of underperforming wingers all season

Isn't the entire Canucks roster shooting at an insanely high sh%?

 

[Svencouver]

Isn't the entire Canucks roster shooting at an insanely high sh%?

Kuzmenko and Mikheyev have struggled relative to expected 1st line production, leading to guys like Suter and Lafferty spending time on his wing. Mikheyev, Kuzmenko, Suter, and Lafferty are all below average 1st linemates for a star center. PP has been reasonably good which has helped his production, though. A lot of the Canucks scoring has been driven by the 2nd and 3rd line.

 

[Kerberos]

He'll pick it up and finish top 5 with around 110 points. Been a down year for Drai - he's missed about 10 open nets from his patented spot and being saddled with the bum Connor Brown for a majority of the season hasn't helped either.

Him, Foegele and McLeod have been excellent the past few games though and Drai has been looking more like himself.

 

[Dion TheFluff]

Playing with Brown and Kane will inevitably dampen your numbers. I wonder if any other superstar centres has played with worse linemates so far this season. Even Foegele and McLeod for how great they are playing are high end 3rd liners.

funny that he's played 180 5v5 minutes with Connor Mcdavid and only played 130 5v5 minutes with Connor Brown. I think Mcdavid would likely be a good linemate no?

 

[bobholly39]

This season, Kucherov, Mackinnon, and McDavid are clearly playing a tier above him.

Barring injuries, he has a soft ceiling of 4.

Likely finishes somewhere in the 7-10 range.

Draisaitl has 4 games in hand on Kucherov, 3 on MacKinnon.
When he gets hot - Draisaitl has been known to score at an absolutely incredible rate.
MacKinnon and Kucherov both have had injury history and are the type of players likely to miss ~5 games or so here and there.
Both Mack + Kucherov have the highest ppg of their career ever right now - it's possible their scoring rate in second half isn't sustainable, and slows down at least slightly.

Add all these things up - I think there's still a chance Draisaitl could unseat one of Kucherov or MacKinnon by April.

I personally voted top 5 rather than top 3, but I think there's a good chance Draisaitl makes a run for top 3 by year end.

 

[McFlyingV]

Isn't the entire Canucks roster shooting at an insanely high sh%?

Yes most of their roster is between 11.5-14.25% OISH% at 5v5. For reference McDavid has never had an OISH% at 5v5 above 11.2% in any season in his career. Its kind of remarkable that almost their entire roster has an OISH% that high.

 

[Video Nasty]

Five straight seasons finishing within the top 4 for both goals and points makes it ridiculous to count him out of the top 5 after less than half a season.

 

[BertMcDrai]

His numbers were ok at seasons start, even better than McDs before his injury...then Brown got dumped (from McDs line) to Drais line and his numbers fell of a cliff...now Browns dumped further down and his numbers are on the raise with 3rd liners Foegele/MacLeod...
I still can't believe that a NHL player can pull down players like McDrai as much as Brown...it's just ridiculous...haven't seen an anchor like him in my hole life...I don't want to s*** on Brown, cause he is coming from injury and nobody deserves it, but wtf is he snake bitten for an usually Top9 forward.

That said, I think he will finish between 3 to 8.

 

[Perfect_Drug]

He's playing a way different type of game with Foegele and McLeod.

He doesn't play that quick transition type game (when he has McDavid, or that Hopkins-Yamamoto line when he won his Hart).

He just slows the play down to a chess match and forces the game to sort of orbit around him like back when he played for Kelowna (Which works great with speedy puckhounds like Foegele and McLeod).

 

[Canovin]

Draisaitl is having a down year and he's still only 3 points behind Matthews

 

[Midnight Judges]

well he better start improving at that if that's his role now because on the Oilers he's 4th last in 5v5 XGA/60 and 3rd last in GA/60.

Going out on a limb here - there's probably a better stat to measure an individual player than total team goals against let alone the hilariously flawed expected goals stats.

 

[Dion TheFluff]

Going out on a limb here - there's probably a better stat to measure an individual player than total team goals against let alone the hilariously flawed expected goals stats.

ok.
he's 4th last in SA/60
5th last in SCA/60
5th last in HDCA/60

 

[Midnight Judges]

ok.
he's 4th last in SA/60
5th last in SCA/60
5th last in HDCA/60

What, on the team, or in the league?

Why not use goals against?