Leon Draisaitl Shares Controversial Opinion About Teammate Connor McDavid; Throwing Shade at Wayne Gretzky
Edmonton Oilers superstar forward Leon Draisaitl revealed today that he believes Connor McDavid is the greatest to ever play in the NHL, even above Oilers legend Wayne Gretzky.
Leon Draisaitl is without a doubt one of the best players of his generation. On 31 NHL teams he would probably be the best player. However, he happens to play for the Edmonton Oilers, who also have Connor McDavid. As the popular phrase goes, it takes one to know one.
Draisaitl may not technically be the goat, but he is an incredibly talented hockey player, so he understands more than just about anyone else just how special McDavid really is. That being said, most hockey fans probably would still say Wayne Gretzky is the true greatest of all time. Apparently, Draisaitl disagrees.
Of course, Gretzky still holds many NHL records including the most goals of all time with 894 and the most points with 2857 points. While Alex Ovechkin may very well break the all-time goal record this season, it seems incredibly unlikely that anyone else will ever come even remotely close to 3000 points.
Think of the greatest players in recent times. Joe Thornton played well into his 40s and still only had 1539 points, more than a thousand short of the record. Even Sidney Crosby is more than 1000 points off with 1613 so far. Granted, he will get a little bit closer as he is still under contract for two more seasons after this one, but it is hard to imagine him even getting to 2000.
Could McDavid challenge Gretzky's point record? Currently, he is at 999 career points with 658 games played. If we assume he is exactly half-way through his career and he scores at the exact same rate, he would end up with 1998 points in 1316 games played. He very well could play more games than that, but his scoring rate will almost certainly slow down at the end of his career, so even McDavid getting to 2000 points could be a stretch. We will just have to watch the rest of his career play out to see what happens.
