Draisaitl plays Messier to McDavid’s Gretzky
Dynamic duo conjuring memories of the Edmonton Oilers glory days
ANAHEIM, CALIF. So is it time to put a shadow on Leon Draisaitl?
As much as the Anaheim Ducks have made it their life’s work to try and stop Edmonton Oilers superstar Connor McDavid with a checking line featuring the acerbic Ryan Kesler and sidekicks Andrew Cogliano and Jakob Silfverberg, Draisaitl is making things very difficult for the Ducks.
The Oilers forward has seven goals and 12 points in six games against the Ducks this season.
Four of those points — one goal and three assists — came in Wednesday’s Game 1 Edmonton 5-3 win over their hosts. Those are McDavid-like stats. Over his young National Hockey League career, the 21-year-old has nine goals and eight assists in 13 games against Anaheim.
“They benefit from each other. McDavid is who he is, but Draisaitl does a lot of little things that people don’t understand to where he gets himself a lot of (open) ice,” Cogliano said after the Ducks practice on Thursday. “He’s strong on the puck, and when he has it, he’s tough to contain, and what gets lost is he has a good shot, too. He finds open space and McDavid finds him.”
“Are we surprised how good he is? No. But we have to take that time and that space from him.”
No kidding. Draisaitl has scored in every Oilers game against the Ducks this season.
“Every player has a team they like to play against. The first two periods I didn’t do much at all, so you need the bounces here and there,” said Draisaitl, who had three of his four points in the third frame of Game 1.
Bounces, schmounces, according to McDavid.
“Leon doesn’t get nearly enough credit," he said.
“This is a great opportunity for him to step into the spotlight."
A German TV crew was in Edmonton earlier this week interviewing Draisaitl, and they called him “(Dirk) Nowitzki on Ice” — pretty heady stuff to be compared to the German-born Dallas Mavericks star. NBCSN TV’s Brendan Burke called Draisaitl “the German Gretzky.”
That might be a reach, of course, although Ducks’ German-born defenceman Korbinian Holzer said there were some German magazines that have indeed called him that.
For sure, it’s all Connor all the time for Oilers Nation, but in some ways, Draisaitl is Mark Messier to McDavid’s Wayne Gretzky. We’re not saying Draisaitl is anywhere near the same rambunctious player as Messier, but teams learned they had to pay attention to Messier’s offence almost as much as to No. 99’s in their 1980s Oilers glory days.
“Connor and Leon are happy for each other, they care for one another a lot … in my opinion, Leon took advantage of the ice available to him (in Game 1),” said Oilers head coach Todd McLellan. “Will it work Friday in Game 2? I sure hope so.”
Through the first four Oilers playoff games, Draisaitl scored no points and managed only one shot, but he was sick.
That ever-present cough, going back to last year, was even worse.
But he’s got seven points in his last three games against the Sharks and the Ducks — that’s the very definition of rolling, which makes it double the trouble for Ducks head coach Randy Carlyle.
He doesn’t have two Ryan Keslers to play the top-line shutdown role, just one.
“They have some players who’ve gone very high in the draft, people forget that,” said Carlyle.
“Where was Draisaitl taken? I know it was pretty high (third)?
He’s strong on the puck, and when he has it, he’s tough to contain, and what gets lost is he has a good shot, too.
(Ryan) Nugent-Hopkins was taken No. 1, wasn’t he? Darnell Nurse was picked high (No. 7).”
“I don’t think the Edmonton Oilers are masking their hockey club by letting Connor McDavid be the centrepiece. He’s a great player, led the league in scoring, but you have to focus on the entire group,” said Carlyle.
Carlyle figures Draisaitl is a major challenge for every NHL team.
He’s a centre playing on the right side with McDavid and if they’re choking off McDavid to a degree with Kesler, Draisaitl is used to lugging the puck himself. Draisaitl doesn’t need McDavid to find him. He can find other people.
“He’s a power forward and we’re allowing him too much freedom. He’s having too much fun,” said Carlyle. “I don’t know how I can put it any simpler.”
Defenceman Cam Fowler has frankly seen far too much of Draisaitl this year. And not just in the first playoff game.
“He plays with Connor, and he’s pretty underrated for his skill and the way he can dictate the pace of the game,” said Fowler. “He has a tendency to get lost in the offensive zone and the puck finds him. The quality players in this league all have that. We have to be firmer on him for sure. No secret he’s had success against us.”