When Leon Draisaitl saw teammate Connor McDavid get a silver stick for hitting 1,000 points earlier this season, he clearly wanted one of his own.
Draisaitl has been pounding the points of late, recording assists on all three goals Thursday to reach the 900-point plateau as the Edmonton Oilers came back for a 3-2 overtime victory over the Boston Bruins.
At 1:04 of overtime, Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman made the initial save on Draisaitl, but Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was there to corral the rebound and drop it to Mattias Ekholm, who scored his fourth goal of the season to secure the victory.
Draisaitl has now recorded multi-point performances in seven consecutive games. He has 18 points over the stretch.
The 29-year-old German star said reaching the 900-point mark for his career is a significant achievement.
“It feels good,” he said. “It’s a hard league and you learn a lot along the way. Every day you truly learn something new. I’m obviously proud of myself, but you can’t get to those milestones without teammates and guys trusting you, coaches trusting you.
"A big, big thank you goes out to everyone who helped along the way.”
Draisaitl hit the milestone in 751 games, the fifth-fastest of any player born outside of North America.
He trails two Hall of Famers and two future Hall of Famers on the list: Peter Stastny (599 games played), Jari Kurri (632), Jaromir Jagr (681) and Nikita Kucherov (743).
“Pretty incredible to be his age and have 900 points,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “It’s an extremely hard thing to accomplish. You see the work he puts in every day to be able to do that.”
Draisaitl also became the fourth-fastest active player to score 900 points behind teammate Connor McDavid (602 games played), Sidney Crosby (677) and Kucherov (743).
Draisaitl leads the NHL with 23 goals and is second in the league with 50 points. It's the 10th time he's scored 50 points in his 11 NHL seasons.
“He’s a sniper but he’s also a stud for us defensively and he takes a lot of faceoffs,” Ekholm said. “That’s what impresses me most about his game. There is no situation where he isn’t first over the boards."
--with files from Sportsnet
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