CALLING ON DRAISAITL
Oilers need more out of young forward
Leon Draisaitl will be the first to tell you his game has slowed a bit since he was tearing up the NHL with the kind of force that had opposition coaches mentioning him in the same breath as Connor McDavid.
Not that anyone needs to be told. When you’re as vital to a team’s success as the 21-year-old forward is to the fortunes of the Edmonton Oilers, people notice immediately when something seems off.
And something definitely seems off with Draisaitl, both on the stats sheet — where he has just three goals in the last five weeks — and on the ice, where that extra jump in his step is a little harder to notice.
“Lately, I haven’t been playing the way I can,” he said after office meetings at the rink Monday to prepare for the Dallas Stars’ visit on Tuesday.
“Every player goes through something like that. No player ever had a year where the whole year went the way he wants it to go. That’s just the way this game is, this league is. I’ve learned that over the last couple of years.”
Draisaitl knows as well as anyone that nobody’s hand stays hot forever. He started this season, his best with the Oilers, with three goals in his first 16 games before going wild on the goalies for 17 in his next 36. And even during that run, there was an eight-game stretch where he didn’t score.
Goals are a fickle thing sometimes, and you can play well without getting them.
So while head coach Todd McLellan doesn’t think Draisaitl’s funk is as deep as the numbers suggest, he has noticed a slight drop in certain key areas.
“It’s the actual input into the game and whether you’re generating chances or opportunities,” said McLellan. “He’s still doing that, but maybe not at the same rate he was before and maybe he’s giving up a little too much the other way.
“We’ll help him as much as we can. He’ll be important down the stretch.”
That’s what has everyone worried. Draisaitl might be the most important player on the team not named McDavid or Cam Talbot.
But with the total stalled at 23 and the playoffs fast approaching, fans are nervous, wondering when he’s going to snap out of it and return to the dynamic, net-filling form that’s going to cost the Oilers a lot of money this summer.
“I have to be better and I’m more than confident in myself that I can do that,” Draisaitl said, not thrilled with the line of questioning but answering from the heart nonetheless. “For me, it’s just a matter of getting back to what I’m good at. I’m going to make sure I start Tuesday.”
Between an Olympic qualifying tournament in Latvia in late August, a deep run at the World Cup of Hockey and heavy minutes in all 68 games for the Oilers this year, it’s been a long haul and one that McLellan thinks might finally be catching up.
“A little bit of his play is based on fatigue,” the coach said. “He’s played more hockey than probably anybody in the league. The
No player ever had a year where the whole year went the way he wants it to go. That’s just the way this game is.
biggest thing we can do for him is rest him both physically and mentally. Thus he’s not skating (Monday). We believe he’ll get back to where he was before.”
There isn’t a lot of down time between now and the finish line, though. So it will be up to Draisaitl to find a way to elevate his game down the stretch and beyond.
“He’s hard on himself right now, and I think that sticks with him a little longer than maybe it should,” McLellan said.
“You have to put the bad ones behind you and look forward.”
Milan Lucic, who has three goals and two assists in his last six games — after six points in the previous 19 — believes the key to breaking out of a slump is to simply grind it out.
“Sometimes less is more,” he said.
“Get back to the basics, keep it simple. Get your feet moving a little more, shoot the puck a little harder, getting the puck out of the D-zone as a winger.”
And don’t freak out about it because it happens to the best of them.
“You look at (Alex) Ovechkin right now,” Lucic said. “He’s gone 10 games without a goal. Those things happen. Sometimes it’s a bounce, but it’s doing the little things to create that bounce.
“We have confidence that he’ll turn it around.”