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It won’t be official until after the rest of the NHL schedule wraps up Thursday, of course, but Leon Draisaitl is the league’s goal-scoring champion of 2024-25.
It would take William Nylander exploding for eight goals against the Detroit Red Wings in the Toronto Maple Leafs’ regular-season finale to change that, which shows just how much it wasn’t a race this year.
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Draisaitl, who finishes with 52 goals (and 54 assists) in 71 games, was so far and away the leading candidate that even missing double-digits worth of games down the playoff stretch due to injury didn’t knock him off course from finishing first, though it certainly took him out of the running to also be the NHL’s points leader.
Prior to sitting out for the first time this season on March 20, Draisaitl was neck and neck with Colorado Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon in the points race, which ended up seeing the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Nikita Kucherov come from behind to run away with his third Art Ross trophy.
But Draisaitl adding a Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard trophy for most goals to his collection of an Art Ross, a Ted Lindsay (Most Outstanding Player), and Hart Memorial (most valuable player to his team) isn’t the kind of thing that has the Oilers stopping to celebrate.
Not ahead of facing the Los Angeles Kings in the opening round of playoffs for the fourth consecutive year. That’s the first step toward the only trophy anyone in Edmonton cares about right now — one the Oilers fell painfully shy of a year ago, when they ended up on the wrong side of the determining goal in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers.
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So, for as much as the Oilers would have loved having Draisaitl out on the ice to wrap up the regular season Wednesday against the San Jose Sharks, there is no arguing against having the superstar forward rest and recover for what they hope is another long post-season push.
As for their other superstar forward, Connor McDavid was officially listed as a game-time decision for Wednesday’s game. But seeing as how he took morning skate on a line with Jeff Skinner and Connor Brown, it felt like San Jose was a long trip for the Oilers captain to take just to watch the game from the press box.
And then there was the little matter of him coming into this one with 99 points. For as much as that number holds a significance in Edmonton’s hockey history, McDavid sitting out Game 82 would have guaranteed him falling short of triple digits in points for the first time in a season that wasn’t cut short by serious injury (48 points in 45 games in 2015-16) or by COVID-19 (97 points in 64 games in 2019-20).
With 26 goals and 73 assists in his previous 66 games played, McDavid’s 99 points was also one shy of moving into the top five in league scoring — a place he has finished every year other than his rookie season.
And considering McDavid had nine assists in the three games he played since returning from a lower-body injury, 100 appeared well within his grasp.
So, to say Wednesday’s season finale was nothing more than a meaningless game wasn’t entirely true. But it didn’t stop the Oilers from saying it anyway.
“The game doesn’t mean anything,” head coach Kris Knoblauch said prior to puck drop. “So, whether Leon plays, Connor plays or (Zach) Hyman plays, those are a lot of question marks and it’s probably not necessary that they do.
“I think they’re game-ready and will be ready for the playoffs, so it’s a possibility they play, but I’m not sure what we benefit with them playing.”
Besides Draisaitl, also not in the lineup Wednesday were Trent Frederic, Hyman, Evander Kane, John Klingberg, Troy Stecher and Jake Walman, all of whom are on schedule to make a return to active duty in time for playoffs.
The other obvious missing piece was top defenceman Mattias Ekholm, who missed all but two shifts totalling 1:52 of ice time over the final 11 games of the regular season with an injury that will also keep him out of at least the opening round against L.A.
“I wish I could spin that one for you, but that’s obviously disappointing,” McDavid said. “There’s no way around that. Unfortunate, obviously. We’ll miss him for a little bit. With that being said, he’s going to do everything he can possible to be healthy, whenever that may be.
“He’s a great player, just does everything right. Maybe the most all-round defenceman there is. He’s a big loss, obviously.”
And that leads into the most significant thing Wednesday’s game meant for the Oilers, as it acted as a buffer to eat up the one-game suspension fellow defenceman Darnell Nurse had to serve after hauling Kings centre Quinton Byfield to the ice and cross-checking him in the back of the helmet in Monday’s 5-0 loss at Rogers Place.
He will be ready for Round 2 of that bout in Game 1.
E-mail: gmoddejonge@postmedia.com
On Twitter: @GerryModdejonge
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