cologne –

Extra time is running out, 5:5 between the Edmonton Oilers and New York Rangers last Saturday at Rogers Arena in Canada. Next decides the goal, only their best teams are on the ice, and it’s arguably the best at the moment, which decides the match after a brilliant pass from Darnell Nurse. Leon Driestal (26) free-stands in front of Russian Rangers goalkeeper Alexander Georgiev, and nets the puck for the tenth overtime goal of his career. club record.

The results are: victory for the Oilers, the spot on Drasite, who begins to watch the celebrations and slides on the ice – along with his team and several people in the arena. Whereas Georgiev has had enough and leaves his gate running without looking around. He must have thought: Draistal again, what do you want to do there too?

Draisital: Even more influential and even more merciless

At the moment, Draistal, who observers believed was played unmatched in the first season from last time, is even more dominant and ruthless. The Cologne native has already been named the Most Valuable Player in the NHL in 2020 with the Olympus of his sport as a personal award.

But as things stand at the moment, Draistale has taken another leap in the way he meets and helps. After ten games, the Oilers lead the Pacific Division table with nine wins and one loss, and it is Dreistales who are currently leading the scorers’ ranking in the world’s best league with 23 points – he scored ten goals and one loss. 13 assisted. The fact that Canada’s new ice hockey hero Conor McDavid is second, the best player in 2021, with eight goals and 14 assists, speaks to the Oilers series. Because McDavid is the captain of Draisaitl’s team.

The recent achievements of the NHL do not go unnoticed, and so on Tuesday, Dreitel was named Player of the Week for the third time in the new NHL season. So the trend is this: This already great center forward is now playing with even more clarity and quality of the finish.

Labh Draistal: Gift of inner balance and restraint

Anyone you meet Leon Dresitl meets a quiet young man who doesn’t like to draw attention to himself with words. This gift of inner balance and restraint is an advantage over Snow, as he plays calmly and as if there was no pressure. Edmonton is an NHL venue that stands for Great Longing. This is the city where Wayne Gretzky played and lived, Canada’s ice saint, worshiped there as footballers Pele, Maradona, Messi and Ronaldo together. In 1984, 1985, 1987 and 1988 the Gretzky-run Oilers won the Stanley Cup, the club’s most important trophy in ice hockey. The great Gretzky left town in 1988, and the Oilers stepped in again in 1990 without him—but since then, apart from a useless conference title in 2006, not much has come together.

But now, with a newly structured and much better squad, with Dresitl and McDavid relocating to various Storm ranks, things are suddenly going well. Cologne and Canada’s top stars work, and so does the team. Draistal contributed to this with a strong desire to reform. In this respect he is similar to the German basketball hero Dirk Nowitzki, who worked carefully in a Franconian hall with his mentor Holger Gschwindner after the season. Dricetal also continues to train in the off-season, having already made up for his once lacking rapid pace. Even while on vacation at his summer home in Cologne, when he visits his father Peter Dreitel, Kölner Hai’s former center and coach and 146-time national player, he visits the Cologne Ice Rink. Spent a lot of time training.

Gretzky: “Leon is getting stronger every year”

Gretzky also recorded it all: “Leon is getting stronger every year. Many have talent. But Leon combines talent with the right attitude. He has the necessary work ethic.” Talent can help, but, Gretzky says: “He’s only so good because he works hard for it every day.”
Draistal himself is still calm, for the time being he is happy about the stages of success: “I think we have the deepest squad since I got here.” That’s from 2015 – but everything has never been so good. Like in fall 2021: that not only do Driesett and McDavid shine, but the entire Oilers team shines as well.