Leon Draisaitl’s Junior career ended last night in heartbreak, as Junior careers often do. Still though, the Oilers had a goal in mind for their big German pivot and it’s hard to think he didn’t accomplish it.
When Leon Draisaitl was sent back to the WHL he had produced just 9 points in 37 NHL games, mostly under Dallas Eakins. It was a crushing defeat of a first NHL season from a point production standpoint. He had gone from 105 points in 64 games in his Draft year to single digits as a pro. There’s no other feeling than disappointment to be had there.
It wasn’t all bad though. He was still creating opportunities for other players with his heads up passing even if nothing was going in for him or his linemates. His PDO (combination of on-ice shooting percentage and on-ice save percentage where 100 is “normal…) was a brutal 93.2 which was just as much low sh% as it was horrific sv%. There’s a pretty solid case for him running through some pretty terrible luck during his time in Edmonton.
What still went well were his possession numbers. He had a 52.1 CF% which was tops on the entire team. Here’s the thing, he was given extreme offensive zone starts as a means of sheltering him, 44% vs just 11.6% in the Defensive Zone. He was tops on the team in possession but he also SHOULD have been tops on the team because of starting position. Still, it’s good to see that he didn’t let them down in that department.
As an aside, after watching him during the playoffs and Mem Cup, I wonder if all those OZ starts actually hurt Draisaitl’s ability to generate offense. I know that sounds a little backwards and maybe it is because I’m just spitballing ideas here. Watching the young man closely, he tends to use his ability to shift up then back down to create time and space for himself. He’s been accused of “playing slow… but building speed through the neutral zone then shifting down in the OZ creates some havoc in the defending players and opens lanes that arent normally there. Those moves are how he has created a fair amount of his scoring at the CHL level and I wonder if having the neutral zone taken away from him in 44% of his time on the ice limits his ability to succeed. He was used quite a bit in Defensive Zone starts by Kelowna in part because his transition game is surprisingly good. It might seem like throwing him to the wolves at the NHL level, but I do wonder if it would allow for him to use his particular skills better.
NOTE
In conversation with Television's Eric Johnson and the Edmonton Journal's David Staples who tracked his own scoring chance data this year (and others), Staples found this
@Archaeologuy @EricJJohnson79 last year on Oilers, Draisailt chipped in on 74 ES scoring chances, just 1 off an offensive zone faceoff win.
— David Staples (@dstaples) June 1, 2015This makes me think that maybe my working theory might not be that far off at all. If just 1/74 legitimate scoring chance came from an OZ win then maybe loading him up in the OZ isn't that great of an idea. It's still just a theory but perhaps there's something there.
In any event, he went back to the WHL to experience personal success and he did everything he possibly could have done short of winning the Memorial Cup, but he did get to OT in the Mem Cup Final. When he first went back I was a little concerned about his point production, it was stagnant or worse from his previous WHL season, but those fears were short lived. Once he got comfortable he was clearly the Rockets’ best player.
He was playing with less established players for the most part and still producing offense at an elite level, albeit with significantly less ice-time than he had been in Prince Albert. His estimated Points per 60 minutes was 4.94, which was far and away the highest in the WHL. In fact it was 2nd only to Connor McDavid -5.58 eP/60- in the CHL (source CHLStats.com). Advanced stats for the CHL are hard to come by because the data does not exist without significant manpower being put into it. Todd Cordell has all the data he manually tracked listed here and Draisaitl tracked very nicely. Mostly started out of the OZ but had a dominating 62% CF and successfully attempted a large number of Controlled Entries. By number, this kid looks like the real deal.
He won the WHL Championship. He won the WHL Playoff MVP Award. He went to within one goal of winning the Memorial Cup and was named the Memorial Cup MVP despite being on the losing side which happened last almost 15 years ago. It was not the trophy he was aiming for. In fact, they actually told him he had to take it because he was going to skate back to the dressing room without it. He was the best player on the best WHL team and the best player at the tournament for the best CHL teams. Anyone who gave up on this kid still has time to get back onto the bandwagon.
His CHL career is over now. If he doesn’t make the Oilers next Fall then he will be playing in Bakersfield centering the top line on the AHL club. He is an impressive prospect and the future looks bright. I think anyone who wants to trade him is crazy and no, not even for Seth Jones. That’s how much I believe in center depth.
Congratulations to Leon Draisaitl on an amazing last half of the year and fantastic Playoffs.
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