Wanna blog? Start your own hockey blog with My HockeyBuzz. Register for free today!
 

Leon Draisaitl Deserves The Hart

February 17, 2020, 3:47 PM ET [53 Comments]
Sean Maloughney
Edmonton Oilers Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
At the end of the 2011-2012 season, Evgeni Malkin was awarded the Hart Memorial Trophy. Malkin's 109 point season (50-59-109) was the best in the league and the only player who broke the 100 point mark. Malkin did all of this while Sidney Crosby was out most of the season with a concussion and helped lead the Penguins to second place in the then Atlantic Division.

While Connor McDavid might only be out a couple weeks for the Edmonton Oilers, there are certainly comparables to be drawn, and Leon Draisaitl who leads the league in points is finally getting the attention he deserves.

Through the first 59 games for the Edmonton Oilers this season, Draisaitl has 34 goals, 61 assist and 95 points and is 10 points away from his previous career high last season of 105 points... with 23 games remaining. Before his 25th birthday, Leon will have had two 100 point seasons.

Draisaitl isn't just an elite player, he is doing things right now that no Oilers player, not even Connor McDavid has done in almost three decades. His 60 assists, prior to the 60th game of the season hasn't been done by an Oilers player since Mark Messier did it in 1990. It isn't unreasonable to expect Draisaitl to exceed 80 assists, something that's only happened one other time in the last decade (Kucherov did it last season).

Now it's time to focus in on the main/most idiotic thought process that has followed Leon for most of his career; that Draisaitl cannot drive his own line or that he simply has benefited from playing with Connor McDavid.

Let's focus on the second part of that first.

Leon Draisaitl spent a fair portion of the early part of the season on Connor McDavid's wing, going 22-39-61. That is a 1.5 PPG pace.

Since being separated from Connor and paired with Ryan Nugent Hopkins and Kailer Yamamoto, Draisaitl has gone 12-22-34, which is a 1.8PPG pace. Leon is producing more right now as a centre than he was playing alongside McDavid.

This spills directly into the other point about Draisaitl and how people felt he wasn't capable of driving a line. Honestly, the idea of being a "line driver" is such a vague and useless hockey term that people don't seem to actually know what they are describing when discussing it. A better way to detail this would be that Draisaitl hadn't shown he can put up elite numbers on a line without McDavid and that was true.... sort of.

Here we see more of an organization problem than a Leon problem. Thanks to poor management, Edmonton hasn't had enough skilled players beside Connor McDavid, Ryan Nugent Hopkins, and Leon Draisaitl. This was the reason why Draisaitl became McDavid's winger instead of playing his natural position.

The times when Draisaitl was centring his own line, he was doing so between the likes of Alex Chiasson (played 570 minutes with last season at EV), Milan Lucic (280 minutes at EV two seasons ago), or Patrick Maroon (played 334 at EV). None of these would be described as top 6 wingers in their own right. Only now are we seeing the Oilers with the depth to ice a true top 6 line and the results have been incredible to watch. Draisaitl's line has been the dominant top line for Edmonton, even with Connor McDavid in the lineup.

Leon has 10 points (3-7-10) in these past four games that McDavid hasn't played and is showing the rest of the league how dangerous a player he is. When the Hart voting takes place, the voters should 100% be taking this into account and there shouldn't be any doubt that #29 for Edmonton is the league MVP this season.

Thanks for reading!
Join the Discussion: » 53 Comments » Post New Comment
More from Sean Maloughney
» Oilers vs Kings - Round 1, Round 3?
» Oilers vs Jets - A WAY TOO EARLY Discussion about Trading Draisaitl
» Oilers Recent Floundering Show Failure To Address Real Issues
» Oilers vs Canadiens - Sorting Out The Blueline
» Oilers vs Caps - Blink and You'll Miss It