Yesterday, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman officially ended the 2019-20 regular season. While the league is slated to return for a 24-team playoff at some point in the summer, the regular season is over if Bettman’s word is to be trusted.
In that case, Leon Draisaitl took home a little hardware on Tuesday afternoon. Draisaitl became the first-ever German to win the NHL’s Art Ross Trophy as the league’s scoring champion.
Draisaitl finished with 110 points (43-67-110) and was the only player in the league to eclipse the 100 point mark. Teammate Connor McDavid finished second with 97 points (34-63-97).
Draisaitl is just the third player in Oilers history to win the award. McDavid won the award following the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons, while Wayne Gretzky won the award seven times while with the Oilers.
After a terrific start to the season, Draisaitl struggled mightily in the month of December. It all changed on New Year’s Eve, when Draisaitl was put at center on a line with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Kailer Yamamoto. That line quickly became the best second line in the league, dominating for roughly three months before the league was shutdown due to COVID-19.
The Oilers, fifth in the Western Conference via points percentage, will face the Chicago Blackhawks in a best-of-five play-in series at some point this summer.
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