19-05-2025
The mystery of Leon Draistaitl deepens in 2025 playoffs
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What Bruce McCurdy and I found astonished us, that on average these shots went in 34 per cent of the time when Draisaitl got them on net. That makes these harpoons about three times deadlier than the average NHL shot.
We're only dealing with a small sample size in the 2025 playoffs, just 11 games, but it's still noteworthy how little Draisaitl has been able to get off his Executioner's Shot on net, just six times in the 11 games, 0.55 per game. That's well down from his 0.80 per game average 2019-25.
At his peak in the 2023 playoffs he launched 1.08 per game on net, 13 in 12 games, and scored on more than half of them.
On the power play in the '25 playoffs only once has Draisaitl been able to get off an Executioner's Shot on net. Just once. He's usually able to do so once every second game.
He's scored three goals on harpoons in the playoffs, but he's off his usual pace.
