Two games since Connor McDavid landed on the Injured Reserve, two wins for the Edmonton Oilers.

The team has tightened things up since that ugly 6-1 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets last week when they watched their captain go down with an ankle injury. Cal Pickard stopped 26 of 27 shots in Edmonton&#8217;s 5-1 win over the Nashville Predators on Thursday and Stuart Skinner turned aside 29 of 31 when the Oilers beat the Calgary Flames 4-2 on Sunday.
The driving force offensively for Edmonton in their back-to-back wins without McDavid has unsurprisingly been Leon Draisaitl. The Oilers scored nine goals across their wins against Nashville and Calgary and Draisaitl was involved in six of them, with three goals and three assists.
Both head coach Kris Knoblauch and winger Zach Hyman had praise for Draisaitl following the team&#8217;s win in Calgary on Sunday. He put the Oilers up 1-0 just 20 seconds into the game and he picked up assists on the game-winning goal and the empty-net insurance goal in the third period.
<blockquote>&#8220;Leon has definitely been our leader,&#8221; Knoblauch said. &#8220;You look at these two games that we&#8217;ve won here and in Nashville and you can see that he&#8217;s really stepped up his game.&#8221;
&#8220;He&#8217;s playing unbelievable,&#8221; Hyman said. &#8220;I think his whole line&#8217;s playing great and he&#8217;s really driving the bus right now for our team and in all areas of the game. He&#8217;s been phenomenal.&#8221;</blockquote>
McDavid took the ice in Edmonton for an optional skate on Monday ahead of the team&#8217;s game with the New Jersey Devils and spoke about how his teammate doesn&#8217;t always get the credit that he deserves.
<blockquote>&#8220;He’s such a great player and he doesn’t get enough credit as is it is,&#8221; <a href="https://x.com/EdmontonOilers/status/1853497207342928171">McDavid said</a>. &#8220;It’s great to see him doing so well and helping the team win some games. He’s one of the best players in the world and a lot of nights he is the best player in the world.</blockquote>
For the season, the German pivot is among a group that&#8217;s tied for second in the league in scoring with nine goals and he&#8217;s just outside the top ten with 16 points. Over <a href="https://www.naturalstattrick.com/playerreport.php?playerid=8477934&amp;sit=5v5">193 minutes at even-strength</a> with Draisaitl on the ice, the Oilers have 254 shot attempts and 52 high-danger scoring chances compared to only 147 attempts and 24 chances against. He&#8217;s also been one of the best centres on faceoffs this season, winning 59 percent of his draws.
Those who have followed the Oilers throughout recent years know that Draisaitl often plays his best hockey when under pressure. He has 108 points over 74 career playoff games, good for fifth all-time in playoff points per game, and he previously <a href="https://oilersnation.com/news/looking-back-at-connor-mcdavids-history-with-injury-and-how-the-oilers-have-done-without-him">won the Hart Trophy</a> in a season when McDavid missed a handful of games because of injury and illness. Despite that, a narrative still persists that Draisaitl is just a passenger.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
If McDavid is out long term, that fraud Draisaitl is finally going to get exposed for what he really is.
&mdash; Adam (@TOSportsAdam) <a href="https://twitter.com/TOSportsAdam/status/1851082176097349980?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 29, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The spotlight on Draisaitl is shining extra bright right now because he inked an eight-year, $112 million contract extension back in August that&#8217;ll give him the league&#8217;s highest cap hit at $14 million when it starts in 2025-26. The eight-year, $68 million deal that he signed after his entry-level contract expired in the summer of 2017 was a <a href="https://oilersnation.com/news/leon-draisaitls-next-contract-will-see-him-briefly-own-the-nhls-highest-cap-hit">precedent-setter for young forwards</a> but it didn&#8217;t carry the same pressure of a record-setting contract.
The reality is that if the Oilers didn&#8217;t sign Draisaitl to that extension, he would likely have netted a bigger contract next summer, either with Edmonton or with someone else. This is a player who has proved in the past that he can be a team&#8217;s star player and he&#8217;s in the process of proving it again while McDavid is on the shelf.

Two games since Connor McDavid landed on the Injured Reserve, two wins for the Edmonton Oilers.



The team has tightened things up since that ugly 6-1 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets last week when they watched their captain go down with an ankle injury. Cal Pickard stopped 26 of 27 shots in Edmonton's 5-1 win over the Nashville Predators on Thursday and Stuart Skinner turned aside 29 of 31 when the Oilers beat the Calgary Flames 4-2 on Sunday.

The driving force offensively for Edmonton in their back-to-back wins without McDavid has unsurprisingly been Leon Draisaitl. The Oilers scored nine goals across their wins against Nashville and Calgary and Draisaitl was involved in six of them, with three goals and three assists.

Both head coach Kris Knoblauch and winger Zach Hyman had praise for Draisaitl following the team's win in Calgary on Sunday. He put the Oilers up 1-0 just 20 seconds into the game and he picked up assists on the game-winning goal and the empty-net insurance goal in the third period.
<blockquote>"Leon has definitely been our leader," Knoblauch said. "You look at these two games that we've won here and in Nashville and you can see that he's really stepped up his game."

"He's playing unbelievable," Hyman said. "I think his whole line's playing great and he's really driving the bus right now for our team and in all areas of the game. He's been phenomenal."</blockquote>
McDavid took the ice in Edmonton for an optional skate on Monday ahead of the team's game with the New Jersey Devils and spoke about how his teammate doesn't always get the credit that he deserves.
<blockquote>"He’s such a great player and he doesn’t get enough credit as is it is," <a href="https://x.com/EdmontonOilers/status/1853497207342928171">McDavid said</a>. "It’s great to see him doing so well and helping the team win some games. He’s one of the best players in the world and a lot of nights he is the best player in the world.</blockquote>
For the season, the German pivot is among a group that's tied for second in the league in scoring with nine goals and he's just outside the top ten with 16 points. Over <a href="https://www.naturalstattrick.com/playerreport.php?playerid=8477934&amp;sit=5v5">193 minutes at even-strength</a> with Draisaitl on the ice, the Oilers have 254 shot attempts and 52 high-danger scoring chances compared to only 147 attempts and 24 chances against. He's also been one of the best centres on faceoffs this season, winning 59 percent of his draws.

Those who have followed the Oilers throughout recent years know that Draisaitl often plays his best hockey when under pressure. He has 108 points over 74 career playoff games, good for fifth all-time in playoff points per game, and he previously <a href="https://oilersnation.com/news/looking-back-at-connor-mcdavids-history-with-injury-and-how-the-oilers-have-done-without-him">won the Hart Trophy</a> in a season when McDavid missed a handful of games because of injury and illness. Despite that, a narrative still persists that Draisaitl is just a passenger.

https://twitter.com/TOSportsAdam/status/1851082176097349980

The spotlight on Draisaitl is shining extra bright right now because he inked an eight-year, $112 million contract extension back in August that'll give him the league's highest cap hit at $14 million when it starts in 2025-26. The eight-year, $68 million deal that he signed after his entry-level contract expired in the summer of 2017 was a <a href="https://oilersnation.com/news/leon-draisaitls-next-contract-will-see-him-briefly-own-the-nhls-highest-cap-hit">precedent-setter for young forwards</a> but it didn't carry the same pressure of a record-setting contract.

The reality is that if the Oilers didn't sign Draisaitl to that extension, he would likely have netted a bigger contract next summer, either with Edmonton or with someone else. This is a player who has proved in the past that he can be a team's star player and he's in the process of proving it again while McDavid is on the shelf.

Leon Draisaitl once again proving his place among NHL’s elite in Connor McDavid’s absence

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