Leon Tim Draisaitl (; born 27 October 1995) is a German professional ice hockey player who is a forward and alternate captain for the Edmonton Oilers of the National Hockey League (NHL). In 2020, Draisaitl became the first German player to win the Art Ross Trophy as the leading point scorer in the NHL, the Hart Memorial Trophy as regular season MVP, and the Ted Lindsay Award for most outstanding player. He also won the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy as the league-leading goal-scorer in 2025, while also being the runner-up for the award in 2019 and 2022 and being the Art Ross Trophy runner-up in 2021 and 2023. These accolades have made Draisaitl become widely known as one of the best players in the NHL.
Draisaitl is the son of former Czech born Germany national team player Peter Draisaitl, who represented West Germany and Germany in 146 games, including at World Championships, the World Cup, and at 1988, 1992, and 1998 Olympic Winter Games.
Draisaitl was selected second overall in the 2012 CHL Import Draft by the Prince Albert Raiders. After two seasons with the Raiders, he was drafted third overall by the Edmonton Oilers in the 2014 NHL entry draft.
Early life Draisaitl was born on 27 October 1995 in Cologne, Germany, to Peter and Sandra Draisaitl. When he was a child, Draisaitl's father played ice hockey for the Kölner Haie of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga and appeared in three Winter Olympics with the Germany national team. Draisaitl played many sports as a child, including association football, but was most interested in ice hockey. As an adolescent, Draisaitl played with the Kölner Haie under-16 team and the Adler Mannheim under-18 team while skating on the side with the Ravensburg Towerstars, a team his father coached. During the 2011–12 German Development League (Deutsche Nachwuchsliga) season, Draisaitl recorded 21 goals and 56 points in 35 games for Jungadler Mannheim and was named the league's Player of the Year.
Playing career
Major junior
Coming off his Player of the Year season in the German Development League, Draisaitl was selected second overall in the 2012 CHL Import Draft by the Prince Albert Raiders of the Western Hockey League (WHL).
Draisaitl was traded to the Kelowna Rockets during the 2015 World Junior Championships, the trade made official on 5 January. Draisaitl helped the Rockets to the 2015 WHL Championship, where he was named playoff MVP after scoring 28 points in 19 games. Draisaitl won the Stafford Smythe Trophy as Memorial Cup MVP the same year, although the Rockets did not win the 2015 Memorial Cup, losing the championship final in overtime 2–1 to the Oshawa Generals.
Professional (2014–present)
2014–2016: NHL debut Draisaitl was drafted third overall in the 2014 NHL entry draft by the Edmonton Oilers, making him the highest-drafted German-trained player in NHL history (Dany Heatley, selected second overall in 2000, was born in Germany but raised in Canada). On 12 August 2014, Draisaitl signed a three-year, entry-level contract with Edmonton. Making the Oilers' NHL opening night roster out of training camp, Draisaitl made his NHL debut in the 2014–15 season opener on 9 October, against the Oilers inner-provincial rival Calgary Flames, which ended with the Oilers losing 5–2. He scored his first NHL goal on 24 October, against Carolina Hurricanes goaltender Anton Khudobin as the Oilers would defeat the Hurricanes 6–3. Draisaitl appeared in 37 games for the Oilers for the first half of the 2014–15 season, recording two goals and seven assists for nine points, before being returned to the Prince Albert Raiders. The move was made on 4 January 2015 partly to prevent Draisaitl from moving one year closer to free agency which he would have done in July 2015 had he been on the Oilers' roster for more than 40 NHL games).
During the last Oilers game of the 2015–16 season at Rexall Place on 6 April 2016, Draisaitl scored the last NHL goal to be scored there in a 6–2 win over the Vancouver Canucks.
2016–present: Rise to stardom, Hart Trophy, Stanley Cup Final runs The 2016–17 season saw both Draisaitl and the Oilers reach new levels of success. On 23 March 2017, he became the first Oiler player since 1990 to have six straight multi-point games. Draisaitl finished the season with 29 goals, 48 assists and 77 points in all 82 games played, while the Oilers, powered by new captain Connor McDavid and Draisaitl, ended a 10-year playoff drought and clinched a berth in the 2017 playoffs by finishing second in the Pacific Division. Facing the San Jose Sharks in the first round, Draisaitl scored his first NHL playoff goal in the Oilers' series-clinching 3–1 game 6 win. The Oilers advanced into the second round to meet the Anaheim Ducks. With the Oilers down 3–2 in the series and on the brink of elimination in game 6 of the series on 7 May, Draisaitl became the second youngest Oiler in franchise history to score a hat-trick in the Stanley Cup playoffs and the fifth player in Oilers history to score five or more points in a playoff game, helping the team stave off elimination and force game 7. The Oilers subsequently were eliminated in a 2–1 loss in game 7, with Draisaitl's thwarted attempt at a tying goal midway through the third period was dubbed the "save of the game" by the NHL. He ended his first playoffs with six goals and 10 assists for 16 points in all 13 games played.
On 16 August 2017, Draisaitl signed an eight-year, $68 million contract extension with the Oilers worth an annual average cap hit of $8.5 million. The signing was controversial at the time in terms of the dollar figure, but it would rapidly in the following years come to be seen as one of the best-value contracts in the league as Draisaitl further developed into a star forward. Following the playoff success in 2017, expectations were high for the Oilers entering the 2017–18, but it would prove to be a disappointing year both for the team and for Draisaitl himself. He sustained a concussion on October 9, in a 5–2 loss to the Winnipeg Jets after a hit from Jets’ defenseman Jacob Trouba, causing him to miss the next four games, and correspondingly saw his scoring slightly regress after returning, which caused the Toronto Star to dub him "maddeningly inconsistent." The team crashed down the standings and missed the playoffs, with the decision-making of general manager Peter Chiarelli increasingly being called into question.
The 2018–19 season saw further disappointments for the team. A 9–10–1 start saw Chiarelli relieve coach Todd McLellan halfway into the season in January 2019, but successor Ken Hitchcock fared no better with a 14–14–2 record by mid-January. After continued losses, Chiarelli was himself sacked. In the midst of this, however, Draisaitl had a new career-best season in point production. In the Oilers' final game of the year on 6 April 2019, Draisaitl became the sixth Oiler (and the first since Craig Simpson in 1987–88) to score at least 50 goals in a season and the ninth Oiler to score at least 100 points in an NHL season, and finished the season with 55 assists and 105 points in all 82 games with his 50 goals being the runner up (behind the 51 goals scored by Washington Capitals captain Alexander Ovechkin) for the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy. In the off-season, Ken Holland was hired as the team's new general manager.
Having already hit new milestones in scoring and increasingly recognized as one of the league's best players, the 2019–20 season would see further improvements for Draisaitl, as he for the first time eclipsed teammate McDavid in point production and was named alternate captain. By the time the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic prematurely ended the regular season in March 2020, Draisaitl had notched 43 goals and a league-leading 67 assists and 110 points in 71 games played. Before the last three weeks got cancelled due to pandemic lockdowns, he had been on pace to challenge Tampa Bay Lightning winger Nikita Kucherov's modern era record 128-point regular season from the previous year and on pace for another 50+ goal season and a 70+ assist season. Notwithstanding that disappointment, the 110 points he had managed were the best of any player that season, securing him the Art Ross Trophy as the leading scorer for the year. He was the third Oilers player (after Wayne Gretzky and McDavid) and the first German player to achieve that distinction. He was subsequently also awarded the Hart Memorial Trophy, awarded by the Professional Hockey Writers' Association to the league's most valuable player, and Ted Lindsay Award, voted on by the NHL Players' Association for the league's most outstanding player. When the NHL returned to play that July for the 2020 playoffs, to be held in a bubble in Toronto and Edmonton, Draisaitl was one of 31 skaters that the Oilers took into their quarantine bubble. As the fifth-ranked team in the Western Conference at the time of the halt to the regular season, the Oilers played in a best-of-five qualifying round against the 12th seeded Chicago Blackhawks, a team they had been expected to beat since the bubble was at their home arena and the Blackhawks weren't originally supposed to be in the playoffs and only were in due to the expanded format while the Oilers were one of the 16 teams in the league that would've been in the 2020 playoffs regardless. However, the team's offense struggled, noticeably lacking in scoring from players other than the top trio of Draisaitl, McDavid, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and was eliminated 3–1 in the series by the Blackhawks. Draisaitl managed three goals and three assists for six points in four postseason games.
In light of pandemic restrictions on cross-border travel, the NHL temporarily realigned its structure for the 2020–21 season, with all Canadian teams playing in the North Division and interdivisional play suspended. Draisaitl and the Oilers enjoyed a strong season in this new format, though following his dominant prior season Draisaitl was now considered by many to again be operating in McDavid's shadow. On 31 January 2021, Draisaitl recorded six assists in the 8–5 win against the Ottawa Senators, becoming the first Oilers' player since Paul Coffey on 14 March 1986 to record a six-assist game. With 31 goals and 53 assists in 56 games, Draisaitl finished second in league scoring, distantly behind McDavid, whose historic season saw him score 105 points (33 goals, 72 assists) in all 56 games. The Oilers advanced into the 2021 playoffs for a series against the Winnipeg Jets. They were unexpectedly swept by the Jets in the first round, with Draisaitl recording two goals and three assists for five points in the four-game series.