Player Discussion Leon Draisaitl - 2019 All-Star

[Jimmi McJenkins]

Draisaitl is on pace for a 50/50 season, I don't think he's gets there, but he's had a largely good start, and really looks like a dangerous player.

 

[Canovin]

Holy crap I would rather have Leon Draisaitl than eiher Panarin or Skinner. Leon is one of the biggest impact players in the league right now and would be more obvious if his production was not narrowly overshadowed by Connor.

Leon now 8th in NHL in pts and tied for 5th in goals scored. He's also caught Pastyrnk who has spend every minute playing with filthy linemaes like Bergeron and Marchand who obviously drive vast majority of the play.

Leon has had a fraction of his minutes with Connor, has had more of it with comparative dolts, and despite this is among the league leaders. Look at the topten, all these players are on ringer lines all the time, get each other every minute, have PMD, scoring D support etc. Every advantage over Leon and yet Leon is right there with them.

On basis of play this year Leon could be in the top handful of forwards so far this season. Not earning pay? Yeah he is. Again.

Between Panarin or Draisaitl? That's difficult to choose. Would take Panarin even at 10M if he wants to sign here. He drives his own line. Exactly what the Oilers need. Waive Spooner and Benning and packages picks with Sekera and Lucic to make room

x-McDavid-Drai
Panarin-RNH-x

 

[McBigYak]

Draisaitl is on pace for a 50/50 season, I don't think he's gets there, but he's had a largely good start, and really looks like a dangerous player.

It was pretty unbelievable the 2 passes he made last night to McDavid. Like you're talking cross ice saucer passes through multiple opposing players and it was absolutely perfect tape to tape, one on his freaking back hand to boot. I take him over Panarin any day of the week.

How anyone thinks this guy is worth less than $8.5 million is beyond me. If this is the production you're going to get from him with #97, you keep him there and get Nuge some help on the 2nd line.

 

[Drivesaitl]

^his pace rounds out to 51G 51A. small quibble..

He might score 40 though. That would be something else. Looks like he's going to have a PPG season or better. Depends on usage obviously do to the talent dropoff of linemates on this club anytime you are not on topline.

His numbers are more amazing considering he played 16 of those games primarily on 2nd line.

 

[Da McBomb]

Top 10 in NHL scoring now He's been really good.

 

[nabob]

Yes. The reason was that nobody, even McDavid, were producing during the three-game losing streak on the road. You could argue almost as easily that McLellan needed to get McDavid going so he gave him Draisaitl. But you still have to push your agenda, I guess.

Agenda lol. Saying that MCDavid needs Draisaitl to be productive is the biggest agenda load of crap in HF history.

I get that you need to praise Drai to the max, even when he was terrible to start the season, but this is too much.

 

[nabob]

^his pace rounds out to 51G 51A. small quibble..

He might score 40 though. That would be something else. Looks like he's going to have a PPG season or better. Depends on usage obviously do to the talent dropoff of linemates on this club anytime you are not on topline.

His numbers are more amazing considering he played 16 of those games primarily on 2nd line.

Weren’t you just saying a few weeks ago that Drai is a 60-70 point player at best and needs someone to drive his line for him? Glad to see you’re back on the wagon.

 

[nabob]

Draisaitl is on pace for a 50/50 season, I don't think he's gets there, but he's had a largely good start, and really looks like a dangerous player.

He had a terrible first 7/8 games and has been a completely different player since the first period of the Pens game. It’s almost like he had to play against a player like Malkin to see how good he is and how good he can be. His effort level has been excellent for the last while, complete 180 from the start of the season and I’m loving the player Drai is right now. I’m betting that Hitch will have a big impact on him. He know how to motivate players and get the message across that players need to put in consistent effort.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Weren’t you just saying a few weeks ago that Drai is a 60-70 point player at best and needs someone to drive his line for him? Glad to see you’re back on the wagon.

Again that was with stubborn Mclellan as head coach and Drai having muppets like the useless Yamamoto on his line. If that continued it was going to be a horrible year, which I stated.

Drai doesn't need someone to drive his line, and even on a line with McD he's driving a lot of the results. What he needs is adequate linemates that can actually play.

 

[nabob]

Again that was with stubborn Mclellan as head coach and Drai having muppets like the useless Yamamoto on his line. If that continued it was going to be a horrible year, which I stated.

Drai doesn't need someone to drive his line, and even on a line with McD he's driving a lot of the results. What he needs is adequate linemates that can actually play.

Well I’m glad to see you’ve become a fan again.

 

[oXo Cube]

Draisaitl is on pace for a 50/50 season, I don't think he's gets there, but he's had a largely good start, and really looks like a dangerous player.

Yeah but remember in the preseason when he wasn't very good though?

 

[Drivesaitl]

Well I’m glad to see you’ve become a fan again.

Of course I never stopped. I was the one defending the player from the tawdry verbal abuse.

 

[Mcnotloilersfan]

Worth. Every. Penny

And for crying out loud just keep the guy with McDavid. Our best season was when these 2 were together. Do something else to solve the 2nd line. Other teams load up their top lines as well.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

My only pet peeve with him is some of his backhand passes are off or get picked off too easily. Beyond that the guy is an absolute stud of a player and I for one am glad that we kept him over Hall as our 2nd franchise player.

 

[Little Fury]

Worth. Every. Penny

And for crying out loud just keep the guy with McDavid. Our best season was when these 2 were together. Do something else to solve the 2nd line. Other teams load up their top lines as well.

We could try trading a second pairing D man for a line driver, I hear that works.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

Worth. Every. Penny

And for crying out loud just keep the guy with McDavid. Our best season was when these 2 were together. Do something else to solve the 2nd line. Other teams load up their top lines as well.

Spooner-RNH-Puljujarvi should take care of the 2nd line, add an offensive defenseman and another forward from Bako and we are rolling.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

We could try trading a second pairing D man for a line driver, I hear that works.

Not every team needs a line driver for their 2nd line. RNH is plenty good enough to be the best player on the 2nd line as long as he doesn't have table scraps for linemates.

 

[Drivesaitl]

My only pet peeve with him is some of his backhand passes are off or get picked off too easily. Beyond that the guy is an absolute stud of a player and I for one am glad that we kept him over Hall as our 2nd franchise player.

It was never either or.

But yeah, I'm glad we have at least Draisaitl remaining considering the GM is still Chiarelli.

But we're still one game removed from Draisaitl being extremely frustrated on and off the ice and hanging his head on the bench after another awesome goal. Those feelings aren't far away. Leon and Connor are having success yet are not happy.

The real difficulty is this team isn't that much after the core. Even the core, Larsson and Klefbom in that, are not looking so great.

So much work needs to be done.

 

[nabob]

Of course I never stopped. I was the one defending the player from the tawdry verbal abuse.

Saying he’s a 60-70 point player that he isn’t actually as good of a player as people think he should be isn’t really defending him.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Saying he’s a 60-70 point player that he isn’t actually as good of a player as people think he should be isn’t really defending him.

Whatever you're doing this AM I'm not doing this.

 

[Canovin]

Not every team needs a line driver for their 2nd line. RNH is plenty good enough to be the best player on the 2nd line as long as he doesn't have table scraps for linemates.

Every championship teams has a line driver on the 1st and 2nd line. RNH needs to be better or we need to bring in someone better

 

[nabob]

Every championship teams has a line driver on the 1st and 2nd line. RNH needs to be better or we need to bring in someone better

Championship team also don’t have guys like Lucic, Rieder, Yamamoto and Spooner as their 2nd line wingers.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

It was never either or.

But yeah, I'm glad we have at least Draisaitl remaining considering the GM is still Chiarelli.

But we're still one game removed from Draisaitl being extremely frustrated on and off the ice and hanging his head on the bench after another awesome goal. Those feelings aren't far away. Leon and Connor are having success yet are not happy.

The real difficulty is this team isn't that much after the core. Even the core, Larsson and Klefbom in that, are not looking so great.

So much work needs to be done.

I don't think that I've heard your take on the Hitch hiring, what do you think? It looked to me like the team was playng their tails off last night, we'll see how long that lasts.

 

[Oilers 322]

Agenda lol. Saying that MCDavid needs Draisaitl to be productive is the biggest agenda load of crap in HF history.

I get that you need to praise Drai to the max, even when he was terrible to start the season, but this is too much.

I don't think he was trying to say that McDavid needed Draisaitl to be productive. McDavid will always be productive because he is capable of scoring all by himself, but the first line as a whole wasn't getting much done during that time. If you only have three top-6 players on the team and two of them are on one line, you expect that line, and not just McDavid, to be good. McClellan put Draisaitl and McDavid back together to try and jumpstart the first line and generate consistent scoring.

 

[Drivesaitl]

I don't think that I've heard your take on the Hitch hiring, what do you think? It looked to me like the team was playng their tails off last night, we'll see how long that lasts.

I did comment on it.

I've always thought Hitch was a good coach. It is curious he's here now as the org went different ways before when they could have had Hitch earlier in his career. But that was more the time when MacT/Lowe were passing the keys to the kingdom back and forth and didn't want an established hockey guy here as competition.

My only concern with Hitch is he's old now. Hopefully he has the energy to deal with this club. He has good input, has learned to be a calming presence, and he seems to be still quite sharp given his interviews yesterday. I thought he made good comments on what was wrong with the club. I think it was important for him to say meaningful things right off the bat and I think he nailed it yesterday. I think he already got the players attention.

It was a really impressive day for Hitch yesterday. He ARRIVED in SanJose at 9am. I mean he was there with bells on. The guy must have hardly slept and yet there he is active and smiling on the bench and being vocal and giving feedback. he'll be sleeping like a baby I hope tonight. He had a long and hard work day.

It was real nice to see the team gut out a W. Important that the first moments were real positive. Team needs that.