Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl wins Hart Trophy, Ted Lindsay award

Leon Draisaitl’s incredible 2019-20 campaign has landed him the Ted Lindsay award and the Hart Trophy.

The Lindsay award is handed out to the NHL’s most outstanding player as voted on by their peers, while the Hart Trophy is awarded to the league’s most valuable player as voted by PHWA members.

He is the first German-born player to win either of the awards.

Draisaitl, 24, had his best year in the NHL despite the pandemic-shortened season posting 43 goals, 67 assists and a league-leading 110 points. He scored 13 points over his next closest competitor, teammate @Connor McDavid, and 15 points over @Artemi Panarin and @David Pastrnak.

On pace for a 50-goal season, Draisaitl recovered after a difficult December by scoring 17 points in nine games in January. He dominated in the Western Conference this season scoring 24 goals and 70 points in 44 games against teams in the west. He was on pace for another 50 goal season that paced him to score 127 points, the most since @Nikita Kucherov put up 128 in 2018-19.

When Connor McDavid went down with a quad injury in February that kept him out for six games, Draisaitl went on a tear scoring four goals and 12 points. He showed he was able to drive his own line alongside Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Kailer Yamamoto as they developed a wild second line to play behind McDavid.

Making his season potentially even more impressive, Draisaitl had 15 games this pasts season without a point. This year 33 of his games have seen him score more than one point, 14 of which have seen him have three-point nights. You can add three four-point games, and two five-point games, too.

This year’s Art Ross winner, Draisaitl now has…. to add to his already impressive resume. Over the last two years, he has flourished into one of the top players in the whole NHL.

Draisaitl was up against @Nathan MacKinnon and Panarin for both the Lindsay and the Hart trophy.

Leon joins an impressive list of other Oilers to win major trophies. Since the 1979 WHA-NHL merger, Edmonton has had 10 Hart Trophy winners, 10 Art Ross winners, eight Lindsay Trophy winners and one Vezina winner.

Teammate Connor McDavid placed fifth in the Hart Trophy voting with 309 points.

On Twitter: @zjlaing