Why there’s real potential with the Oilers using Leon Draisaitl in a shutdown role

Back in 2023, the Edmonton Oilers had lost in six games to the Vegas Golden Knights in the second round, the team that would go on to win the Stanley Cup that year.

While Edmonton’s series defeat that postseason could be ascribed to several factors, perhaps the most significant one was their complete inability to neutralize Jack Eichel, Vegas’s top centre. In those playoffs, the Oilers may have out-scored the Knights 8 to 7 at 5-on-5 with Eichel off-ice, but with Eichel on-ice, Edmonton was terribly out-scored 8 to 1. Ultimately, it was the deciding factor in an otherwise tight series.

This postseason, the Oilers had a rematch with the Golden Knights in the second round, and this time around, things were much different.

With a 1-0 OT victory last Wednesday night, the Oilers successfully defeated the Golden Knights in five games, and Eichel, despite scoring a career-high 94 points in the regular-season, did not score a single goal in this series. In fact, his line was out-scored 3 to 6 at 5-on-5, equating to a brutal 33 percent goal share. 

And, a big reason for that was Leon Draisaitl.

At 5-on-5, Eichel had most commonly matched up against Draisaitl, particularly in Games 4 and 5 where head coach Kris Knoblauch separated McDavid and Draisaitl. Eichel played over half of his TOI against Draisaitl, and in those minutes, Eichel was out-scored 5 to 2 and out-chanced (in terms of high-danger chances) 15 to 8.

Draisaitl’s most impressive performance in this regard was Game 4 at Edmonton, where the Oilers had last change. Knoblauch hard-matched Draisaitl’s line with Vasily Podkolzin and Kasperi Kapanen against Eichel, and it was a huge success as Eichel’s line did not score, combining for a mere one shot on net.

Offensively, Draisaitl was not at his absolute best in this series. Of course, he still managed to produce 6 points, but for his lofty standards, it was not at the level that many would typically expect out of him. But on the other hand, outside of some rough moments in Game 3, he was simply fantastic defensively.

Overall in these playoffs, Draisaitl has been on-ice for 2.4 goals against per hour at 5-on-5, the second lowest (i.e. best) rate of his postseason career. And it’s certainly worth noting that those goals against rates been slightly brought down by Stuart Skinner’s struggles in the first two games of the first round; in terms of expected goals, Draisaitl’s 2.03 xGA/60 is the best rate of his career, and eighth overall among forwards with at least 100 minutes played in the 2025 playoffs.

This level of defensive play from Draisaitl is certainly not a new development in these playoffs. It began at the very beginning of the 2024-25 regular-season, and I wrote all about his significantly improved defensive play back in January. Throughout this entire season, he has been consistently involved in his own zone, greatly improved his backchecking, and has transformed his former high-event style of play to a possession-oriented, cycle-dominant game. The sample is now undeniably large enough for this to be truly legitimate.

And now, I believe there is significant potential in consistently using Draisaitl in a shutdown role at 5-on-5 moving forward in these playoffs.

There’s a couple of reasons why, and a big one is the team’s offensive explosion from their bottom-six.