Darryl Sutter has changed in some ways, but not as a manager of people, which was his undoing. The wins couldn’t be savoured, the losses became unbearable. The cost of having Sutter at the helm was already steep.
MARINA DEL REY, Calif. — Somewhere along the way, Leon Draisaitl went from being a lanky German kid playing junior hockey in Prince Albert, Sask., to any or all of the following:
A cover boy for worldwide sports designer Puma. An international hockey superstar. An impossibly handsome man. The player with the most team-friendly contract ($8.5 million AAV) in the entire National Hockey League.
And of course, the NHL’s most clutch playoff performer, tied for the league lead in points with Connor McDavid, going back to the start of the 2022 post-season.
If they made a movie about him, the title would be: The Delivery Man.
Draisaitl doesn’t play humble or feign surprise when asked how this all came to be.
“I always knew my potential. I think I always knew what I was all about,” he says.
What do they say? It ain’t bragging if you can do it.
“You know,” began the son of Peter Draisaitl, a long-time German national teamer in the ‘80s and ‘90s, “having a Dad who has been in these situations, has won championships — whether that’s in a lower league or not — he taught me early on that big time players step up in big games and big moments. And it really matters the most when the playoffs are on the line, so I pride myself on that.
“It’s really, really important to me. Now, hopefully I can continue that.”
Hopefully?
A smart editor would change that “hopefully” out for something north of “probably.”
The Delivery Man — this is a guy who lugged a high-ankle sprain through a five-game series with Calgary last spring, and delivered 17 points. In a five-game series.
If Round 1 against Los Angeles turned around Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft’s decision to put Draisaitl and McDavid on the same line in Game 4, then it was Draisaitl’s six points in the opening three games of the series that bought time for the adjustment. Time for his teammates to find their stride, before pulling away from the Kings in six games.
Against the maniacally defensive Kings, Draisaitl piled up seven goals and 11 points — second in the NHL only to Roope Hintz’s 12 points for Dallas. Now the Oilers get Vegas, a team that will forecheck and play the watchable, entertaining brand of hockey that L.A. eschews.
The Golden Knights are better, and perhaps as importantly, far bigger than the tiny Kings. Vegas owns a defence corps that will lean on Draisaitl, who slows the game down better than any player in the NHL today.
Will that be harder to do against the Golden Knights?
“No,” Draisaitl said. “I know how to play against any opponent. I know how to play my game.
“I know when to slow down, when to speed it up. That’s what makes me the player that I am. There’s nothing that Vegas has that I haven’t played against or am aware of how to handle.”
Draisaitl, like similarly built players before him — think Mario Lemieux, Ryan Getzlaf — can come off as slow. Or in those rare spans during the season when his passes aren’t finding teammates’ sticks quite as effectively, delinquent.
He is neither. Nor is he afraid to engage, wielding a healthy slash to the back of the leg of anyone who has earned the honour.
Push him off a puck? Yeah, good luck with that.
“I don’t think he’s a victim of size. He’s strong enough himself,” confirmed big Mattias Ekholm, who wore the yellow jersey of a Nashville Predators team that has been absolutely ventilated by Draisaitl over the years. “A lot of his game is between his ears, and I think it’s his mentality and his competitiveness. When you have that, I don’t think size matters as much.
“He can slow it down, but he can be fast too. When he turns the jets on, I’ve played against him. He can really turn it on.”
Traditional logic states that Draisaitl is what he is, in part, because he plays with McDavid. But to say he is fully a product of McDavid’s brilliance is to don a sandwich board that reads, “I Go To Bed Before The Western Games Start.”
What Draisaitl has mastered, however, is the exploitation of opponents who over-commit in defence of McDavid.
McDavid takes a step to his left, and two opponents begin to take a step to their right. Before their left skates have hit the ice, McDavid is passing to Draisaitl, who has speed-read the play and positioned himself perfectly for a Mike Bossy-like one-timer.
“Absolutely, (McDavid) draws a lot of attention to himself. But so does (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins). So does (Evan Bouchard). So a lot of times it gives me the freedom and the time to find my spot to pick a corner,” Draisaitl said. “I absolutely do take advantage of being on the ice with four other really, really good players. With that being said, if you ask them they’ll probably say the same thing.”
At age 27, he has become the next Alex Ovechkin, scoring goals from an area on the ice of which everyone is aware, but nobody can stop. A 50-goal scorer in three of the past five seasons — four of those being 100-point campaigns — Draisaitl feasts on the powerplay the way Ovechkin always has, but from multiple locations.
“First of all, you need different looks, right?” he explains. “If we ran the same play over and over again, it wouldn’t work. I’ve got a lot of great players who can create things by themselves, that frees me up, opens me up. So it’s a little bit of just having different plays set up and different options, and can you just kind of work around that.”
There is no surer money in the NHL, however, than Draisaitl from the right-wing circle. Usually on a pass from McDavid.
“They might be one-two in the world. I don’t think it’s a bad combo,” smiled Zach Hyman. “They complement each other — Leon is so smart, with an amazing hockey mind, so he’s able to read the play. And he’s also got the skill set to capitalize, whether it’s a one-timer, a pass, whatever.
“Connor’s ability and speed opens space up. He draws two guys to him, and then there’s open space for Leon.”
The only open space today for that kid who arrived in Prince Albert a decade ago — after a long flight from Cologne — is the summer villa in Spain.
It’ll have to wait while Draisaitl tries to win the one trophy left that doesn’t have his name on it.
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