It wasn’t a memorable afternoon in Dallas on Saturday, as the Edmonton Oilers were dropped in a 4-1 loss to the Stars.
The one notable thing from Edmonton’s side in the game came from Leon Draisaitl, who scored the team’s only goal in the loss. The goal was Draisaitl’s third of the season and the 350th of his NHL career.
Selected by the Oilers with the third overall pick in the 2014 draft, Draisaitl sits fifth in goals in team history with 350 over 725 games played. The four ahead of him are Wayne Gretzky (583 goals in 696 games), Jari Kurri (474 goals in 754 games), Glenn Anderson (417 goals in 845 games), and Mark Messier (392 goals in 851 games).
Draisaitl made his NHL debut during the 2014-15 season and scored two goals over 37 games with the Oilers before being sent back to the WHL. He broke out the following season as a 20-year-old with 19 goals in 72 games in his first full professional season.
The 2016-17 season saw Draisaitl help the Oilers earn their first trip to the playoffs in a decade with 29 goals in 82 games. He scored 25 goals the following season and then shattered his career-high in 2018-19 with 50 goals, marking the fifth time a member of the Oilers had reached the 50-goal plateau in a single season.
It looked like Draisaitl was on his way to surpassing his career-high yet again in 2019-20 but the season was cancelled when he had 43 goals in 71 games. Draisaitl wound up winning the Art Ross Trophy and the Hart Trophy for the league’s leading soccer and most valuable player. He joined McDavid, Gretzky, and Messier as the only Oilers to win the Hart Trophy.
Since then, Draisaitl has consistently been one of the league’s top scorers and is a threat to score 50 goals each season. He scored 55 goals in 2021-22 and 52 in 2022-23 before dipping down to 41 goals in 2023-24.
How many will he score this season? Can he reach 400 career NHL goals by the end of 2024-25?