{"id":42972,"date":"2019-03-02T19:34:28","date_gmt":"2019-03-03T00:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=42972"},"modified":"2019-03-02T19:34:28","modified_gmt":"2019-03-03T00:34:28","slug":"edmonton-oilers-leon-draisaitl-scores-40th-goal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2019\/03\/02\/edmonton-oilers-leon-draisaitl-scores-40th-goal\/","title":{"rendered":"Edmonton Oilers Leon Draisaitl Scores 40th Goal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the last four full seasons, the <strong>Edmonton Oilers<\/strong>&#8216; <strong>Leon Draisaitl<\/strong> has tallied 279 points, or close to 70 points a season.<\/p>\n<p>This season is turning out to be a career high for the 2014\u00a0third overall NHL Entry draft selection for the Oilers. The Edmonton club has enjoyed many first-round choices, including none other than one <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/mcdavco01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Connor McDavid<\/a><\/strong> who went first overall the next year.<\/p>\n<p>He now trails McDavid by just nine points and that&#8217;s saying something.<\/p>\n<h1>Edmonton Oilers&#8217; Leon Draisaitl is One Gifted Player<\/h1>\n<h2>Edmonton Oilers Leon Draitsaitl Now Has 81 Points<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/video\/embed\/draisaitls-40th-of-the-season\/t-300081752\/c-66505103?autostart=false\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>With his goal today against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/blue-jackets\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a> he now has joined the hefty 40-goal club for the 2018-19 season. To display his all-around play he also added two assists to give him 41 for the campaign.<\/p>\n<h2>Why is Edmonton so Bad?<\/h2>\n<p>With a one-two punch of McDavid and Draisaitl, most are scratching their heads as to why they still flounder out of the playoffs by five points with just 17 games remaining.<\/p>\n<p>Special teams win hockey games and the Oilers&#8217; are lacking in that department. As of this writing, they at 24th in goals scored with a 2.77 goals per game average. Their defence is worse placing them 25th with 3.25 goals allowed per game.<\/p>\n<p>The power play you would think should be over the top, right?<\/p>\n<p>WRONG!<\/p>\n<p>They are near the middle of the NHL placing 12th with a 21.7 percent success ratio with the man-advantage. The penalty kill is almost non-existent with a terrible 75.4 percent kill ratio, placing them 29th in the league.<\/p>\n<p>So, even if you have two exceptional scorers like McDavid and Draisaitl there&#8217;s no guarantee you will succeed.<\/p>\n<h2>Cam Talbot is Gone and That&#8217;s a Good Thing<\/h2>\n<p>They Oilers unloaded <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/2019\/02\/16\/edmonton-oilers-trade-cam-talbot\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cam Talbot<\/a> <\/strong>at the trade deadline. He just wasn&#8217;t bringing it and something needed to be done. His mediocre 10-15-3 record was only superseded by his horrific .893 save percentage and 3.36 goals against average.<\/p>\n<p>When you examine all NHL goalies who have played at least 30 games,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nhl.com\/stats\/player?report=goaliesummary&amp;reportType=season&amp;seasonFrom=20182019&amp;seasonTo=20182019&amp;gameType=2&amp;filter=gamesPlayed,gte,30&amp;sort=wins\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Talbot is at the very bottom<\/a>. Even if McDavid and Draisaitl combined for 100 goals (they have 73 now) it is doubtful the Oilers could win more games.<\/p>\n<p>As it is now, the duo accounts for 41.2 percent of the Oilers&#8217; goals. Where&#8217;s the rest of the team?<\/p>\n<p>Had the Oilers played goalie\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/koskimi01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mikko Koskinen<\/a><\/strong> more often could that may have helped\u00a0significantly? Apparently, the Oilers feel more comfortable with him in net and showed that confidence when <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/2019\/01\/21\/edmonton-oilers-extend-mikko-koskinen\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">they extended his contract<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It seems as much.<\/p>\n<p>His record is a much more respectable 18-15-4. He carries a .911 save percentage and a good 2.76 goals against average. Sometimes teams play better in front of a certain netminder as opposed to another.<\/p>\n<h2>For Leon Draisaitl This is a Special Season<\/h2>\n<p>Even if the Edmonton Oilers fail to qualify for the playoffs, Draisaitl will remember this season as one of his best in the NHL.<\/p>\n<p>He is paid handsomely to perform with an eight-year $68 million contract and he&#8217;s only in his second year of that agreement.<\/p>\n<p>Still, it can be assured that he&#8217;d rather be in the playoffs than score\u00a040-50 goals.<\/p>\n<p>Until that&#8217;s decided, Leon Draisaitl will keep on scoring goals and assisting on others to help his team move forward.<\/p>\n<p>The big question is&#8230; will that be enough?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"knG1IVNcQoFkiy586TnuHw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1132858463\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'knG1IVNcQoFkiy586TnuHw',sig:'MqAGCSwthFy-lNuPN0ZxIj6f5NdiMuolXmTFPgnd0fM=',w:'594px',h:'489px',items:'1132858463',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the last four full seasons, the Edmonton Oilers&#8216; Leon Draisaitl has tallied 279 points, or close to 70 points a season. This season is turning out to be a career high for the 2014\u00a0third overall NHL Entry draft selection for the Oilers. The Edmonton club has enjoyed many first-round choices, including none other than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2959,"featured_media":42976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,34],"tags":[1119,139,138,193,3234],"class_list":["post-42972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oilers","category-news","tag-cam-talbot","tag-connor-mcdavid","tag-edmonton-oilers","tag-leon-draisaitl","tag-mikko-koskinen"],"modified_by":"William Grigsby","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2959"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}