What does Draisaitl need to go down as the greatest ever number 2?

[TheGreenTBer]

Had some burritos the other night and maybe had the greatest #2 go down in history.

5 classless underwear bloodstains

 

[The Panther]

I think I speak for most Oiler fans when I say that we love Leon dearly, and I for one love to pieces his one-timers from the bottom of the circle.

It also has to be said that my heart skips a beat every single time he has the puck on his stick inside the Oilers' defensive zone. There is something weirdly lackadaisical about Draisaitl's effort in moving the puck out of his own zone.

If he's making a great stretch pass to someone in the clear, then, yes, he's amazing. But when he has to hold the puck a few seconds and make a simple play up the boards to get it out... he never does. Invariably, he tries drop-passes, behind the back passes, three-foot passes to a teammate right in front of the net (who often doesn't see the pass coming), or passes that are easily picked off by the opposition.

 

[Steven Toast]

I think I speak for most Oiler fans when I say that we love Leon dearly, and I for one love to pieces his one-timers from the bottom of the circle.

It also has to be said that my heart skips a beat every single time he has the puck on his stick inside the Oilers' defensive zone. There is something weirdly lackadaisical about Draisaitl's effort in moving the puck out of his own zone.

If he's making a great stretch pass to someone in the clear, then, yes, he's amazing. But when he has to hold the puck a few seconds and make a simple play up the boards to get it out... he never does. Invariably, he tries drop-passes, behind the back passes, three-foot passes to a teammate right in front of the net (who often doesn't see the pass coming), or passes that are easily picked off by the opposition.

I find this to be a very hyperbolic statement. Draisaitl is poor defensively mostly due to poor back checking and lost coverage when the other team has the puck. This is an attention to detail thing, and something he has improved significantly this year. When he has the puck he can be counted on to get it out of the zone with regularity.

I do not share the same panic when Drai has the puck in his own zone, I actually relax and feel assured that the puck is to remain in Oilers possession for the next sequence.

 

[Professor What]

Most people now haven't seen Mikita play much, so there's a general lack of knowledge about his game, his reputation being based on his four scoring titles.

Mikita was a very good and skilled player but he was not in the same class as guys like MacKinnon, Kucherov, or Matthews today, or players like Malkin, Forsberg or Fedorov.

The overrating of Mikita stems from the general lack of talent in the League during his era. His skills made him fairly unique during the '60s, and that's why he was a big scorer. But skilled players like him became more common, especially by the 1980s.

Mikita wouldn't win any scoring titles if he were a decade younger, or any time subsequent to that.

And you didn't give any argument other than new>old.