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When they insist on referring to you as “the city of towers and gates,” you may as well lean into it and call your team the Ravensburg Towerstars. Or Tower Stars, depending on what day it is. A city of 50,000 in the German Alps with a 14th-century tower known as the Blaserturm and a pro hockey team in the German second division isn’t exactly the most likely venue for the incubation of one of the most explosive and dynamic players on the planet. Because, let’s face it, it’s no Leduc.
Nonetheless, Ravensburg is where Leon Draisaitl found himself during the most formative development period of his hockey life. His father, Peter, was coaching the Towerstars, and Leon was entering his teenage years. Scoring 192 points in 29 games – that’s an average of 6.6 points per game for those of you reaching for your device – against German kids in Mannheim clearly wasn’t enough of a hockey challenge for him, so he’d spend all his free time at the Eissporthalle Ravensburg, where his dad worked. He’d be on the ice before and after practice (and sometimes during). He’d sit on the bench and follow drills and listen intently during power-play and penalty-killing sessions. But most of all, he’d try to get on the ice anytime he could with an undersized Canadian guy named Ben Thomson, who wore No. 29 for Ravensburg.
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You know that ridiculous shot Draisaitl gets off from the right circle, the one that no goalie in the NHL seems capable of stopping these days? When Thomson isn’t dining out on the fact that Draisaitl worshipped him so much that he took his number, Thomson will tell you that he spent hours feeding a young Draisaitl passes in just that sweet spot. He’s a righty, and Draisaitl is a lefty, but Thomson claims the kid was mimicking him. Thomson is now a rancher in southern Alberta, thereby living out every kid’s fantasy of being both a hockey player and a cowboy. But back in the day, he was a star at the University of Alberta. In the 2005 University Cup, Thomson scored the tying goal with 23 seconds to go and the winner 5:27 into overtime to give the Golden Bears the 11th of their 16 Canadian university titles. At 5-foot-7 and 181 pounds, Thomson might have found a pro hockey job closer to home in this day and age, but in those days, the German second division was where he ended up before he retired to become a cowboy.
- Ben Thomson
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Taught the kid everything he knows, Thomson claims. Even badgered him constantly to improve his skating beyond that of Slap Shot ilk. “He skated like one of the Hansons when he was a kid,” Thomson said. “It was like he was pitching hay all the time. We always bugged him about that, so it’s good to see that he’s lengthened his arms a little bit.”
Draisaitl jokes that, “He’s right, I kind of looked like one of the Hanson Brothers. I kind of still do.” But he’s not about to start beating up Coke machines or putting on the foil or berating the referee because “I’m listening to the f---in’ song!” The fact is, Draisaitl’s skating has improved markedly since he came into the league, and especially since he bought a summer place in Toronto and has followed his best friend, Connor McDavid, into former NHLer Gary Roberts’ little cult, the one where they never order french fries or put mayonnaise on anything. In fact, it’s one of many weapons Draisaitl has developed to become one of the world’s best players. He skates better than a lot of people think, defends far more robustly than perceived and is not nearly as grumpy or grouchy as he would lead people to believe.
Wait, what’s that? “Oh no, he’s a grump,” said Draisaitl’s agent Andy Scott. “He’s a bona fide grump.”
After a second to reflect, Scott walks it back a little. It’s not as though Draisaitl wakes up daily in ill humor. Quite the opposite, actually. He’s a gentleman, gracious with his time, and, get this, former Oilers GM Ken Holland – who has worked with the likes of Nicklas Lidstrom, Steve Yzerman, Brendan Shanahan and Chris Chelios – describes Draisaitl as “one of my favorite players I’ve ever managed.” And, really, why would Draisaitl be angry? He’s wildly talented, he’ll be the clubhouse leader in cap hit when his eight-year contract extension with the Oilers kicks in next season, and he’s getting married this summer in the south of France to his best friend’s wife’s best friend. Life is good.
- Leon Draisaitl
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He’s not dour. He is, however, as straightforward as they come, doesn’t suffer fools and tends to be direct and economical with words when he speaks. It’s no coincidence that he and McDavid get along so well, since they both make Jonathan Toews look more like Captain Kangaroo than Captain Serious. “I don’t put on a show,” Draisaitl said. “That’s just the way I am. Some days I’m a little grumpier than others. It’s just my personality. But I’ve got a big heart on the inside. And if you don’t know that, then you don’t know me. And that’s OK.”
Are there times when Draisaitl’s body language, or actual language, on the bench is a little pointed and curmudgeonly? Of course, but that’s the way it is with the truly great ones. When they’re in the moment, they sometimes forget that it’s impossible for others to live up to the standards they set for themselves. Yzerman wasn’t always a barrel of monkeys himself, and Nathan MacKinnon, well, he can be a little prickly, just like Draisaitl. “Sometimes you see him getting frustrated on the bench, but he’s got an incredibly big heart,” said Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch. “He gets mad about something, and then he feels bad about it.”
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According to his coach, Draisaitl is the first to the rink almost every day. He meticulously tapes and works on his stick – the one with the blade so wide you can almost see it from outer space – in an effort to do the little things that maximize performance. And it all goes back to his childhood days at the Eissporthalle Ravensburg, when he would spend time in the dressing room before his father’s team practised, then spend almost all of the session in the runway with a tennis ball and his stick, keeping the ball in the air for as many consecutive hits as possible. “There was never a time where I didn’t see him with a hockey stick doing tricks with pucks and tennis balls,” Thomson said. “He loved the game and loved being around it. He ate absolutely everything up, from what we said to how we acted to how we prepared, how we trained. He was just a sponge when it came to the game.”
- Andy Scott, Draisaitl’s agent
A decade-and-a-half later, Draisaitl continues to be a sponge, soaking up goals and offense at a prodigious pace this season. It’s actually a little ridiculous how much better he has been than everyone else in the NHL in 2024-25. Through his first 67 games this season, Draisaitl had been held scoreless in only 10 of them – five of the first 14 and five of the next 53. He had an 18-game streak, with points in 26 of his previous 27. He was making a mockery of the Rocket Richard Trophy race, and when you took away empty-net goals, Draisaitl was without peer offensively. (Through mid-March, Draisaitl had just four empty-net points. MacKinnon, who was two points ahead of him in the scoring race at the time, had 13.)
“He has been outstanding all year,” Knoblauch said. “He’s been strong. Dominant almost every single night. He has been one of the best, if not the best forward on the ice each night. For him to play as well as he has so consistently is pretty remarkable.”
But it isn’t simply the consistency with which Draisaitl was scoring that is so uncanny. It’s as much about the quality of offense as it is the quantity that sets him apart this season. When McDavid missed six games earlier in the season with injury and suspension, all Draisaitl did was score five goals and 11 points. Through mid-March, Draisaitl led the league with 12 first goals of the game and 24 points on first goals. (McDavid was second at 4-13-17.) In goals that put the Oilers ahead at any point in a game, Draisaitl had 22-21-43 totals, far ahead of McDavid at 8-27-35. And Draisaitl had 10 goals and 24 points on goals that put the Oilers ahead in a game for good, again ahead of McDavid at 3-16-19. The only situation where McDavid (5-15-20) had more points than Draisaitl (8-10-18) was on goals that tied a game.
Remarkable indeed. Combine that with some of the best faceoff numbers in the NHL and a robust 200-foot game and you have the makings of a Hart Trophy winner. Which is great for Draisaitl, who has already won the award once and probably likes the idea of swapping out McDavid’s name for his own on the trophy’s nameplate every once in a while. But as the Oilers prepared for the playoffs and hit some pretty significant bumps down the stretch, it highlighted what has long been a flaw in Edmonton’s roster, and that is the Oilers, despite all their efforts to change the narrative, are relying on Draisaitl and McDavid to drag them into the fight as much as they ever have. In mid-March when the Oilers defeated the New York Islanders 2-1 in overtime, Draisaitl scored both goals to extend his point streak to 17, and the overtime-winner was his 100th point of the season on the Oilers’ total of 211 goals. At one point in the season, Draisaitl had 25 more goals than McDavid, while the next-highest difference between the No. 1 and No. 2 scorers after that was 12. Seventy of those points had come at even strength, despite the fact that he had played much of the season on the Oilers’ second line with Vasily Podkolzin and Viktor Arvidsson on his flanks. Sure, the 14 goals between the two of them were appreciated, but there didn’t seem to be a game this season where Draisaitl didn’t have a good number of teammates clutching onto his superhero’s cape. And it’s not as though this is anything new. Since 2018-19, when Draisaitl posted the first of seven consecutive 100-point seasons or the equivalent (he had 84 in the truncated 56-game season in 2020-21) nobody has scored more goals than Draisaitl, and only McDavid has more points.
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It’s much of the reason Draisaitl’s contract extension, which will pay him an average of $14 million in each of the next eight seasons, might look like one of the league’s most team-friendly deals in the early years. When Scott sat with colleague Mike Liut around Draisaitl’s kitchen table last summer to explore their options when Draisaitl was set to become an unrestricted free agent after this season, they talked about weather and no-tax U.S. states and places where Draisaitl would have the best chance to win the Stanley Cup. There’s a 55-degree Fahrenheit difference between the average temperature in Miami and Edmonton in January, which might mean something to somebody who has played all but 38 games in the prior 13 years in two places – Edmonton and Prince Albert, Sask. And he’d have taken home $1.8 million more on the $16.5 million he’s due to make next season if he were in Dallas instead of Edmonton. But Scott said Draisaitl made it clear where he wants to be.
“He’s like, ‘I’m a hockey player. I want to play hockey,’ ” Scott said. “ ‘This is a great team, and this is a great market.’ This is a true hockey player. He’s not like, ‘Yeah, I wouldn’t mind getting closer to the beach or not having state tax. I can do all that stuff at the end of my career. I’ve got lots of time to do that stuff. I want to win in a hockey market with a good group of people around me.’ And then he said something that really hit home. He said, “ ‘All the greats, all the legends, won where they were drafted.’ ”
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There are no guarantees that will happen, this season or any other. In fact, there are those who believe the Oilers are further away from winning the Stanley Cup in 2025 than when they came excruciatingly close in 2024. McDavid’s contract is up after next season, and his future there is still uncertain. Perhaps he’ll have a conversation around his dinner table this summer with his agent, Judd Moldaver, and come to the same conclusion his best buddy did. Maybe not. Sometimes, best friends and their best-friend wives drift apart.
And you have to wonder how long the Oilers can continue to rely so heavily on so few players. Last year in the playoffs, Draisaitl broke a rib in Game 1 of the second round when he was hit by Vancouver Canucks defenseman Tyler Myers, and he played through that and a hand injury for the rest of the post-season. Three years ago, Draisaitl sustained a high-ankle sprain in the first round and gutted it out for two more rounds as the Oilers made it to the Western Conference final. In the Oilers’ past three playoff runs, Draisaitl has 81 points in 53 games, second only to McDavid’s 95.
“I mean, that’s the reason why I committed – why I’m here long-term,” Draisaitl said. “Winning a Stanley Cup is the ultimate goal. Winning the Stanley Cup anywhere is special. I’m aware of that, but I think the path we’ve been on and what we’ve been through, to win it here would mean just so much more to me. That’s the goal. We’re chasing it. We were close last year, and, hopefully, sooner than later, we win it.”
The only guy Draisaitl may have idolized more than Ben Thomson was Pavel Datsyuk. That’s why Draisaitl, to this day, uses a stick with a wide blade, and why he’s so good on the backhand. He’s already following Datsyuk to the Hall of Fame, that much is for sure. Draisaitl has already blown past his idol when it comes to points, but Datsyuk won two Stanley Cups, one as a good-but-not-great rookie and another as the best two-way player on the planet. Last June, Datsyuk was visiting his former agent, Dan Milstein, who has a place in Florida. He was having lunch with Holland at the Oilers’ hotel the morning before Game 7, and Holland texted Draisaitl to invite him to join them. Draisaitl was reminded then that all he can hope for is to keep the Oilers among the teams contending for the Cup, to keep banging on the door until one day they break through. Nearly nine months later, he’s reminded of the same thing after a morning skate in Buffalo, down the stretch of a season in which he has been dominant in every way.
“I hope you’re right,” he said.
This article appeared in our 2025 Playoff Special issue. Our cover story focuses on Edmonton Oilers star Leon Draisaitl, who looks primed for another deep playoff run. We also include features on other Cup contenders, including the Dallas Stars, Washington Capitals, Florida Panthers and more. In addition, we give our power ranking of the top playoff teams heading into the 2025 post-season.
You can get it in print for free when you subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/Free today. All subscriptions include complete access to more than 76 years of articles at The Hockey News Archive.
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