There’s no stopping Leon Draisaitl in the playoffs this year.
Heading into Saturday night’s game two against the Vegas Golden Knights, the sniper had already scored 11 goals in his eighth game. A good chunk of those came in game one against Vegas, when he scored four goals, but he’s already adding to that total.
In game two, Draisaitl opened the scoring by finding the back of the net with his 12th goal of the playoffs. The goal made him the second player to score eight or more goals through his first five road games in a postseason joining Fred “Cyclone” Taylor, who achieved the feat with the Vancouver Millionaires in 1918. With Draisaitl scoring a second time in the first, he tied Taylor, who scored nine goals over his run.
Draisaitl achieved another feat in Saturday night’s game with that goal as he became the third-fastest player in NHL history to reach 75 playoff points doing so in 45 games. The only two who were faster than the German Gretzky were Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky himself.
His torrid pace has him creeping up on an incredible playoff scoring record, too, as he looks to score the most goals in a single postseason. The record is shared between Reggie Leach, who had 19 goals in 1975-76, and Jari Kurri, whose tremendous post-season performance came in 1984-85. He’s already keeping pace with Kurri, as he became the first player since he to score 13 goals during any eight-game span in the playoffs.
Heading into the second period, Draisaitl is just seven goals away from breaking the record and there seems to be no stopping him.
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