This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Leon Draisaitl

52 goals on a 21.7 per cent rate, and a line that was outscored while creating 19 more chances than it allowed.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2014-15	EDM	37	2	7	9	-17	4	1	0	1	49	4.1	12:42
2015-16	EDM	72	19	32	51	-2	20	5	0	2	133	14.3	18:04
2016-17	EDM	82	29	48	77	+7	20	10	0	5	172	16.9	18:53
2017-18	EDM	78	25	45	70	-7	30	6	3	1	194	12.9	19:19
2018-19	EDM	82	50	55	105	+2	52	16	3	5	231	21.6	22:35
2019-20	EDM	71	43	67	110	-7	18	16	0	10	218	19.7	22:37
2020-21	EDM	56	31	53	84	+29	22	15	1	8	168	18.4	22:11
2021-22	EDM	80	55	55	110	+17	40	24	1	11	278	19.8	22:21
2022-23	EDM	80	52	76	128	+7	24	32	1	11	247	21.1	21:44
2023-24	EDM	81	41	65	106	+26	76	21	0	7	217	18.9	20:42
2024-25	EDM	71	52	54	106	+32	34	16	0	11	240	21.7	21:31
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	790	399	557	956	+87	340	162	9	72	2147	18.6	20:35

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

52 goals and 54 assists in 71 games for 106 points, plus-32, on 21:31 a night with 16 on the power play and 11 game-winners — the most goals in the league.

59.5 per cent at five-on-five, the 99th percentile. His on-ice goals were 66-46 against an expected 69.2-47.1, which is three goals of finishing that did not arrive at one end. 21.7 per cent shooting on 240 attempts is the highest rate of any high-volume shooter in this edition, and even that was not enough to make the arithmetic work.

The Finesse Game

The most complete offensive forward in the league after his centre partner. The release is heavy and disguised and he can use it from a standstill, which is why 37 per cent of his attempts come from inside 20 feet against defences built to deny exactly that.

The passing is the equal half. 54 assists is a fair total and understates the volume of chances he creates; on the power play he is the most dangerous one-timer threat in hockey from the left circle. The hands in traffic are exceptional for a 6-2, 209-pound centre.

The Physical Game

6-2 and 209, and he plays heavier than his reputation. He protects pucks below the goal line, wins the wall against defencemen, and is very difficult to knock off a possession.

34 penalty minutes over 71 games. The skating is the only ordinary tool — he is not fast, and the game is built entirely on strength, hands and anticipation, which is a set of skills that ages far better than speed.

The Intangibles

A Hart, an Art Ross, a Rocket Richard, and a career of being the second-most discussed player on his own team.

At 29 on a new long contract, he is the least fragile part of this roster: none of what he does depends on pace. The reservation is the same one that attaches to the whole club — two Cup finals and no Cup, and the arithmetic underneath last season says they deserved considerably better than they got.

What kind of player

The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.

measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed

Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.

clutch· scored his goals when the game was still live
11 of his 52 goals late or in overtime, 96th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure barely repeats (0.06) · 10% keep it
drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
59.5% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 51.5% for his club in the minutes he sat: +8.0, 97th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
workhorse· carries the load at even strength
16:53 a game at five-on-five, 100th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
sheltered· is started in the attacking end
62% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 90th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
wins-the-walla strength· the corners and below the goal line
“He protects pucks below the goal line, wins the wall against defencemen”
hard-to-movea strength· cannot be shifted from where he decides to stand
“is very difficult to knock off a possession.”
playmakera strength· passes up the shot a scorer takes
“54 assists is a fair total and understates the volume of chances he creates”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,199 minutes

Expected goals: 59.5%; 99th pct
Shot attempts: 58.6%; 97th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 66 for, 46 against. Expected: 69.2 and 47.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

99th

Numbers

99th

The two rank him within 0 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.

Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 88 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2024-25 · 71 games

Top speed: 23.2 mph; 92nd pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 2.85 a game
Distance: 3.31 miles a game
Hardest shot: 87.4 mph; 63rd pct

A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.

Usual linemates

2024-25 · 1199 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2024-25

The club: EDM took 54.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 59.5% — 5.2 above the club he did it on.
The role: Second line, 1,199 minutes at five-on-five — 84th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Evan Bouchard	61.6%	57.6%	56.0%
Vasily Podkolzin	59.7%	59.4%	54.2%
Darnell Nurse	59.1%	59.8%	50.5%

61.6% together, 57.6% for him apart and 56.0% for Bouchard apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

333 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 52 of them goals. His median goal came from 19 feet. 37% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 10% from beyond forty.