The Biggest Winner Of Leon Draisaitl’s Spectacular Season Is Not The Edmonton Oilers, But German Hockey

Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl may be the NHL’s leading scorer and likely MVP, but perhaps German hockey is the real winner. For the first time in history, once voting becomes official, the Art Ross and Hart Memorial Trophies will belong to a German-born player.

“I’m proud of it,” Draisaitl said on a Zoom conference call with reporters, according to the Edmonton Sun. “It’s obviously a cool story for myself, no question. You dream of doing these things, but until you do it, it seems very far away.”

Far away would be an accurate way to describe the prospect of a German-born NHL MVP. When Draisaitl was born in 1995, the league was more than 80 percent North American, with only four active German NHL players. The quartet, a trio of three skaters and one goalie, combined only for 126 games played and 24 points that season, according to QuantHockey.com. By comparison, Draisaitl posted league-leading career highs in points (110), assists (67) and game-winning goals (10), while playing in all of Edmonton’s 71 games in the Covid-19-shortened regular season.

Draisaitl’s success is a testament to how far Germany’s hockey program has come and the NHL’s globalization efforts. In the last 30 years, a steady flow of European players has diversified the league. Nearly a third of the NHL now hails from outside of North America. And although Germany’s nine active players only represent a minuscule portion of European players, the country’s talent pool has undoubtedly improved.

“The Germans are making an impact, no matter if it’s [Tobias Rieder], Philipp [Grubauer] or me,” said Pittsburgh Penguins and German National Team forward Dominik Kahun, according to NHL.com. “Earlier there were not so many Germans in the NHL, so nobody talked about German ice hockey that much. But I think that we’re on the right track.”

Despite ice hockey being the 11th most popular sport in Germany, according to Statista, the nation has managed to produce several high-quality players in the last decade. Draisaitl obviously leads the way. When he was drafted third overall in 2014, he became the highest-drafted German-trained player. (Dany Heatley was selected second in 2000 but was born in Germany and raised in Canada).

Talented prospects Dominik Bokk and Moritz Seider have followed in Draisaitl’s path. The St. Louis Blues selected Bokk with the 25th overall pick in 2018, and the Detroit Red Wings took Seider sixth overall in last year’s draft. Both have bright futures and starred at the most recent World Junior Championship. Bokk, now with the Carolina Hurricanes, is the organization’s third-best prospect and 65th overall, according to The Hockey News’ Future Watch Issue. Seider’s ceiling is even higher – he’s Detroit’s No. 1 prospect and sixth-best in the NHL.

“I think we’re trending in the right direction,” Draisaitl said, according to DW.com. “Germany’s just not a big hockey country, but we can still become a very solid hockey country that develops good young players, and I think the last three or four years we have done a really good job of that.”

The run doesn’t end there, though. According to Tankathon.com, three German-born players rank among the top-31 prospects of the incoming draft class. Three first-round selections would be a record for Germany and mark the third consecutive year a German player is selected in the first round. And while Canadians Alexis Lafrenière and Quinton Byfield are projected to go first and second overall, Germany’s Tim Stuetzle is ranked as the next best prospect and could tie Draisaitl’s draft record.

“I’ve never seen [Stuetzle] playing live, but what you hear about him is incredible, what he did this season,” Kahun said.

But even with a crop of talented draft picks emerging in the last decade, quite possibly the most prominent example of Germany’s overall improvement on the ice came on the international stage. Based on gambling odds, the German National Team entered the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games as the eighth-best team in the tournament, according to SportingNews.com. Still, they managed a surprise run to the Gold Medal Game. Despite losing in overtime in the finals, Germany’s silver medal marked their first time on the podium in men’s ice hockey since 1976.

And in recent years, the NHL has taken notice of the rise in talent and popularity of hockey in Germany. Since the league announced the NHL Global Series in 2017, the Edmonton Oilers and Chicago Blackhawks participated in exhibitions against Deutsche Eishockey Liga clubs Kölner Haie and Eisbären Berlin. Before the NHL cancelled its international slate due to the ongoing pandemic, the Boston Bruins were scheduled to play Adler Mannheim.

As hockey continues to grow around the world, Germany has proven itself as a valuable pipeline. With an MVP to call its own, the country’s future on the ice is bright.

“The German hockey in the NHL is improving,” Kahun said. “Especially with Leon playing how he did, that’s great advertising for German ice hockey.”