When the Oilers traded Hall for Larsson they may have partially addressed the holes on their defense, but in doing so they simultaneously took away the safety net and blindfolded Leon Draisaitl while he dares to walk the tightrope. Edmonton’s gambit is that, without Hall, Draisaitl is capable of continuing his offensive maturation. And, based on recent deals, there’s a lot on the line whether he lives up to the challenge or not.
MISMANAGEMENT
Before we can really get into Draisaitl’s future we have to acknowledge first the extremely poor decision-making that now impacts it. The Edmonton Oilers burned a year off of Leon Draisaitl’s Entry Level Contract when they opted to play him more than 9 games in what became his rookie season. As the 3rd Overall pick, the club believed he was ready for the NHL even as the player himself was saying he needed more WHL time during that off-season.
Craig MacTavish, then Oilers GM, traded Sam Gagner and replaced him with Teddy Purcell. Purcell performed relatively well in his role as a right-winger, but the move was very clearly the franchise vacating a roster spot for an 18 year old Draisaitl. When the raw rookie arrived at camp he had almost nobody to beat out for a job, and naturally he won against his shadow competitors.
After 9 NHL regular season games he was averaging somewhere between 13 and 14 minutes a night and had just 1 goal and 2 assists. The Oilers at this time should have sent Draisaitl to the WHL and taken their lumps (as they would do later). They did not. They stuck with Draisaitl even though the young man was mired in a brutal scoring slump. I’d like to point out that his possession numbers were fantastic as a rookie, however he was also getting the most favourable matchups and zone starts.
Edmonton eventually capitulated and sent Draisaitl down to the WHL after 37 games going 2-7-9 along the way. By the time he left he had the established hockey punditry wondering if the Oilers had made a mistake by picking him so high in the Draft. Luckily he immediately proved himself an elite scorer among his peers again in the WHL and dominated the playoffs all the way to being named Memorial Cup MVP on a losing squad. However, two important consequences of these choices now impact the Oilers.
1) The Oilers burned a year of Draisitl’s ELC so he is 1 year closer to being paid. 2) Now the Oilers must protect Draisaitl in the expansion draft next summer.
ON YOUR OWN
This season Leon Draisaitl was better prepared for NHL duty and was initially angry about an October AHL assignment. Injuries forced Draisaitl back to the big club almost immediately and then the big German lit the NHL on fire to make a huge statement early. He and Taylor Hall found an early chemistry and with Draisaitl playing on the right wing (as a left shot) they had a lot of success.
In fact, the story with Draisaitl is exactly about how much success he had with Hall compared to when he was apart. With Taylor Hall pushing the play forward and leading the club in scoring, it very much looks like he took the young Draisaitl along for the ride.
Draisaitl had 38 5v5 points in 2015-2016, good for 2nd on the Oilers (Hall was 1st with 48). In total Draisaitl played 1038:15 5v5 last season, 878:43 were with Taylor Hall. The breakdown on points looks like this:
With Hall: 878:43, 13G-21A-34P, 2.32 P/60 Without Hall: 159:35, 1G-3A-4P, 1.50 P/60
The numbers without Hall drop significantly if we go backwards to include Draisaitl’s aforementioned disastrous rookie campaign. The with Hall numbers drop just a very small amount. I’m inclined not to include his rookie season too much as he was clearly out of his depth, but if you don’t feel the same then I’m sure there’s a lot more concern about Draisaitl from your perspective. As for the Oilers, I’d be willing to guess they don’t count the first 37 games he played (I wish the NHL could do the same).
Depending on how you think the Oilers roster will shape up, you might have Draisaitl as the 2C of the Oilers. I would suggest this isn’t a great idea as his most success came on the wing, but also because he hasn’t shown that he can drive an offensive line on his own yet. I know everybody wants to move on from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (for some reason), however there’s already a lot of pressure on Neon Leon to perform without once again forcing him into a roster spot he hasn’t won outright yet.
THE STAKES
Draisaitl’s next contract is going to be immensely important to the Oilers because it has to be negotiated with Connor McDavid’s deal in mind. McDavid will command almost anything he wants on his next contract and the Oilers will have to pay it. How much room he leaves everyone else is up to him, but Chiarelli has to expect at least 9 million per year dedicated to McDavid. That means buckling down on other player contracts.
Yet, because they burned the first year of his ELC with that 37 game fiasco, the club has just this coming season left with Draisaitl for relatively cheap. Even with his Schedule A and B bonuses the most Draisaitl will cost the club is still less than 4 million dollars on the Cap. The problem is that he just finished the year 2nd on team scoring with 52 points and a couple of young comparables have just signed new deals at more than 6 million per season.
Today the Colorado Avalanche signed Nathan MacKinnon to a 7 year 44.1 million dollar deal and the Winnipeg Jets signed Mark Scheifele to an 8 year 49 million dollar deal. That’s 6.3 million and 6.125 million on the Cap respectively. These two players have to be two of the deals that Draisaitl’s camp has to be targeting when time comes to negotiate German Gretzky’s next contract. Naturally, this is assuming a similar offensive season in 2016-2017 or perhaps even performing better.
All three of Scheifele, MacKinnon, and Draisaitl are Centers who play part-time on the wing, have high draft pedigree, and similar offensive production. The two who just got new contracts also jumped from their Entry Level deals to long-term deals without that so-called “Bridge Contract….
Here are all three during their 2nd NHL seasons then what they followed up with in year three:
2nd Season Scheifele: 82GP, 15-34-49 MacKinnon: 64GP, 14-24-38 Draisaitl: 72GP, 19-32-51
3rd Season Scheifele: 71GP, 29-32-61 MacKinnon: 72GP, 21-31-52 Draisaitl: ???
Based on scoring numbers, which players who earn the big bucks get paid for, there is not a lot that Draisaitl has to do to be right in the range of 6+ million dollar men, Scheifele and MacKinnon. If you’re looking for possession metrics in addition to base stats then Draisaitl is a highly positive player there too.
Edmonton is in a bit of a bind with Draisaitl right now. They obviously plan on him being a large part of the team, but they don’t entirely know what he’s capable of doing away from Taylor Hall. They need him to continue to perform. If he does not then their opportunities for success this coming season start to dwindle away. If he does perform then a market has been set for players like him to be paid more than RNH, Eberle, and the previously mentioned Hall even though the team needs to save Cap space for McDavid the following year.
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