Well, it’s time for another fabulous NHL player point prediction. We already did one for his teammate, Connor McDavid, and now it’s time for the Edmonton Oiler Leon Draisaitl‘s 2025-26 point projection. So, let’s get down to business.
Leon Draisaitl’s 2025-26 NHL Point Total Projection
Draisaitl has typically been one of the league’s top point getters throughout the peak of his career trajectory. Conversely, you could think of Draisaitl as the type of player that never really falls off. Sidney Crosby is a great recent example of that, or going back further, Mario Lemieux would even be a comparable. The point is, the list of greats that don’t fall off, is few and far between. Even though it took Draisaitl a few years to hit a high level, he has yet to show any signs of tampering off.
If we dive right into Draisaitl’s offensive productivity, we can start with an aspect that has been a great generator. To that point, the Draisaitl and McDavid power play combo has been one of the better, if not just for recent history, maybe of all time. However, we are sticking to the recent work, to help to provide a point estimate for the upcoming campaign. Since the 2018-19 season, Draisaitl has been between 29 and 62 points on the power play. In contrast, he was only above 44 once, in the magical 2022-23 season. That was his career-high season of 128 points (52 goals and 76 assists). You might remember, that also synched with McDavid’s magical 153-point performance.
Draisaitl is a Fantasy Hockey Dream
Draisaitl is a fantasy manager’s dream. He never goes beyond the first round of player fantasy draft picks. Here’s a stat for you, that four times in his NHL career, he has scored 50 goals in a season. Even the great Auston Matthews can only say that he hit that value twice.
You get one guess who is the best all time for 50-goal NHL seasons. That’s right, Wayne Gretzky, Mike Bossy, and Alex Ovechkin, at nine times. Amazingly enough, the only other active NHLer to achieve the feat more than once is, drum roll… Steven Stamkos.
We Keep Referring the 2018-19 Season As a Starting Point of Greatness
Another stat that synchs with that remarkable run since 2018-19, is his shooting percentage. For those seven years, he has been humming at 18.5% or better. Three times he has been above 21.1%, including two of the last three years. He really is in the prime of a fantastic career.
So, what do these seemingly random power play and goal out stats have to do with anything? They are everything when it comes to Leon Draisaitl’s 2025-26 point projection. It gives us a baseline. You know he is the model of consistency when it comes to offensive output, and there is little that opposition defences can do to limit it. He’s going to get a lot of power play points, and he’s going to get a lot of goals.
For Draisaitl, it does have a lot to do with the players around him. If Zach Hyman is healthy on the top power play unit all year, it will reduce Draisaitl’s goal total, but likely not his point total. If anything, it probably drives up his point total and frees up more space for him.
Understanding Leon Draisaitl’s Teammate Factor on his Point Projection
Another big factor, is who are his regular 5v5 linemates. Vasily Podkolzin linked up with Drai a lot last year on a line. However, playing a lot with a guy who only had 24 points (eight goals and 16 assists) in 82 games isn’t going to drive your own point total much. The Oilers have had a fair bit of turnover, especially on forward. Therefore, Draisaitl will get options and to see where the chemistry works with different combinations as the season goes along. Newcomer Andrew Mangiapane, a guy with a career-high 35 goal season under his belt, could very well factor in.
Even some young players, like a Matt Savoie or Isaac Howard, when on the big club, will likely get a shot with Draisaitl to see if there’s an offensive fit there with their respective games. Draisaitl wants someone with speed and the ability to finish, that is why someone like Podkolzin has potential.
So, one thing we want to mention is this, even if Draisaitl gets out to a slow start, it is because the Oilers are trying to find what works. Their power play should keep them going through those potential tough early season growing pains. Moreover, that just means Draisaitl will be more focused on optimizing his output in the man advantage situation.
We Are Talking Goals
Now for fantasy team lovers, it is time to lock down in our point projection for Leon Draisaitl. His goal amount seems pretty consistent, because he still finds a way to get it done. Again, back to 2018-19, every year since, Draisaitl has had a goals-per-60-minutes of 1.5 or higher. As a note, his highest value of his career of 2.0 goals/60, came just last year.
In any sense, it is hard to imagine a world where Draisaitl falls outside of the 40-60 goal range. Given the fact of the unknown of his linemates, we want to say he focuses on producing offence himself somewhat. Therefore, we like to tend to the mid of that range, with a tendency to the upper end. In other words, we think there is a better chance he gets 60 than 40. However, in terms of our actual prediction, for conservatism, we will take 45-50.
If that seems low, based on what we are saying, you will see that logic in a minute. We do think he finds chemistry with his 5v5 line combination, eventually. You know, the times when he’s not out there with McDavid. Therefore, we think where Draisaitl is going to see an increase from 2024-25, is in his rate of assists. With options like Mangiapane, Hyman, and we think a breakout from Podkolzin, he will put up big numbers here. Looking over assist rates, and in fact, four of the last five seasons, Draisaitl has been 2.1 or above assists/60. Simply fantastic.
Finally, Leon Draisaitl’s 2025-26 Point Projection
So, based on what we have concluded, we like an assist range of 60-65. Three times in the last six years, he has actually been 65 or better. Last year, missing 11 games did prevent him from more than his 106 total points. However, we think he gets back closer to 80 games this year, and finds good rhythm. Thus, these things will drive up his assist totals. Adding his goals (45-50) to his assists (60-65), where we think one will impact the other, we find him right around 110 points. Now, we are gearing this as a conservative prediction, and based on a near full season. These really are our two disclaimers. If he can get chemistry early, with a forward not named McDavid, we think that drastically drives his total points. Given that he had scored 52 or more in three of his last four years, it’s reasonable to suggest he approaches 120 points.
Main Photo Credit: Walter Tychnowicz-Imagn Images