‘You just learn to grow the other parts of the game’: A more mature game sets Draisaitl’s sights on Selke Trophy

Very quietly, Leon Draisaitl has become one of the best defensive centres in the National Hockey League.

It’s been a cumulative effort over recent campaigns with the German shaking the silly “lazy” narrative that clung to him early in his career. Voters have started to take notice, as last year, he finished sixth in Selke Trophy voting as Professional Hockey Writers Association voters showed him some love. He got one first-place vote, and found himself on 41 of 191 submitted ballots.

There are reasons to see why.

Over each of the last two years, there have been 137 NHL centres who have played over 1500 minutes at five-on-five. Ranking fifth in time-on-ice among them, Draisaitl has put himself into the upper echelon of this group in terms of key defensive metrics. Averaging percentile ranks for per-hour rates of shot attempts against, goals against, expected goals against, high-danger chances against, high-danger goals against and their respective shares, Draisaitl grades out as the ninth-best centre over that time.

And while he may remain on the outside looking in, for now, he hopes to change that this season.

“I’d like to be in the Selke conversation at the end of this year,” he said Friday. “Obviously, there’s a lot of things that go into that and a lot of things that I can learn and get better at. But there’s also a lot of things that I think I do really well already.”

If he’s able to do so, he would be the first player in Edmonton Oilers history to win the award.

Draisaitl’s progression to becoming a more well-rounded player isn’t anything new. Many top draft picks who are touted as offensively gifted players struggle in their own zone for many years. Some never figure it out, and it handicaps their ceiling as an overall talent.

While playing sound defensive hockey may not be the most fun thing to do on the ice, especially for those with excellent skills in the offensive zone, Draisaitl has found a way to flip that narrative for himself.

“The first couple of years, you want to put up numbers. You want to establish yourself as somebody that can score and make plays and at times even be flashy,” said Draisaitl. “That’s just a little bit of immaturity — every kid has that.

“But with age, I think you just learn to grow the other parts of the game are actually just as much fun as scoring and assists and all those things. Stripping someone (of the puck), playing good defence. It’s a lot of fun, too. It’s a lot of work, but a lot of fun.”

When it comes to Draisaitl and others like Connor McDavid and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, all top draft picks, their recommitment over their careers to the defensive game has helped take the Oilers to another level.

That’s just what you have to do to win hockey games.

Draisaitl has a chance to usher in a new era of big, strong centres who can be in Selke contention with L.A. Kings centre Anze Kopitar set to retire at the end of the upcoming season. And with the two having battled head-to-head 36 times in the regular season and 24 times in the playoffs, Draisaitl has learned lots from the Slovakian, developing a close friendship.

“Kopie was always my idol growing up or one of my two guys that I really looked up to. I’ve learned so much from playing against him, from watching him,” he said. “I had the privilege of playing with him at the World Cup in 2016 and took me under his wing there. We’ve had a close friendship ever since.

“(His two-way game), it’s as good as it gets. It’s as good as you’ll ever see. And it’s the consistency part, right? That he’s done it for a long time. He does it every day, every game. And I think that’s something that I took a little bit in getting to, but I’m at a point now where I’m the same way.

“Maybe we got another couple of battles against them, so I won’t let him off the hook yet.”