Draisaitl becomes 1st German player to reach 1,000 NHL points

Leon Draisaitl became the first German-born player in NHL history to get 1,000 points on Tuesday.

The 30-year-old forward, who had four assists for the Edmonton Oilers in a 6-4 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, reached the milestone by getting the secondary assist on Zach Hyman's 5-on-3 power-play goal at 11:38 of the first period.

He then followed that up by getting the primary assist on Connor McDavid's power-play goal just 14 seconds later, which pushed the lead to 2-0.

"A lot of hard work. A lot of people that helped along the way," Draisaitl said. "These accomplishments, they're always directed at the single player, but there's so many people that play such a big part in that. I'm highly aware of the fact that I've got a lot of people in my life over the last couple of years that have just kept everything off my plate and kind of let me do what I do and what I wanted to do. Just super grateful, super thankful, and, of course, a little bit proud."

Draisaitl, who has 416 goals and 587 assists in 824 games, is the 103rd player in League history to reach the prestigious mark. He's also the fifth-fastest player born outside of North America to get 1,000 points, behind Peter Stastny (682 games), Jari Kurri (716 games), Jaromir Jagr (763 games), and Nikita Kucherov (809 games).

"Yeah, it's pretty amazing," Draisaitl said. "There's some incredible names on there, some names that are absolute legends in our game, in our world. To put myself into that list, yeah, it's special, for sure."

It’s also an accomplishment he could not have imagined as a boy growing up in Cologne, Germany.

"No, it was surely just a dream, yeah," Draisaitl said. "Growing up in Germany seems like it's a long ways away, you know? So, obviously, I'm extremely proud of that, but again, I don't underestimate how much work comes from the outside as well."

Selected by Edmonton with the No. 3 pick in the 2014 NHL Draft, it didn't take long for Draisaitl to become the highest-scoring German-born player in League history, surpassing Marco Sturm (487 points), who is now the coach of the Boston Bruins, in just his seventh season.

“He’s the best German player to ever play the game, that’s for sure,” Sturm said. “He’s a guy that’s going to hit a lot of milestones coming up. I don’t know anyone else even in the future who is going to be that good."

Truth be told, he’s one of the best players overall in the game today, as his resume shows.

Last season, Draisaitl won the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy after scoring a League-leading 52 goals. In 2019-20, he won the Hart Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player, the Ted Lindsay Award, which is given to the most outstanding player in the League as voted on by members of the NHL Players’ Association, and the Art Ross Trophy as the League's leading scorer after putting up 110 points (43 goals, 67 assists) in 71 games.

In his first 11 NHL seasons, Draisaitl has scored at least 50 goals four times and finished with at least 100 points six times, including a career-high 128 points (52 goals, 76 assists) in 80 games in 2022-23. Since 2018-19, Draisaitl ranks second in the NHL with 796 points (341 goals, 455 assists) in 555 games, trailing only McDavid, who has 882 points in 537 games.

"First and foremost, as a player, just a special player. Can't say enough good things," McDavid said. "I mean, he does it each and every year, both sides of the rink. Really, really special. A special accomplishment. For him to get there so fast, as I said, can't say enough good things. And obviously, as a person, he works his tail off. I see it firsthand every day. It's not surprising for him to reach this accomplishment and reach it so quickly with so many great years ahead of him still. That's a great thing."

Draisaitl, who has 47 points (17 goals, 30 assists) in 34 games this season, ranks fifth in Oilers history in points, and he has a chance to catch Mark Messier (1,034) and Kurri (1,043) later this season. McDavid is second with 1,138 points (381 goals, 757 assists) and Wayne Gretzky is first with 1,669 (583 goals, 1,086 assists). Draisaitl is also one goal away from tying Glenn Anderson (417) for third in Oilers history.

"What he's done, and I've only been here a short period of time, but regular-season success, playoff success, just such a big-time player and scoring big-time goals," coach Kris Knoblauch said when asked what Draisaitl means to Edmonton. "He gets a lot of attention for, I guess, a lot of things, whether it's the goal-scoring, the playmaking. I don't think he gets enough credit for his defensive play, but really remarkable player."

NHL.com independent correspondent Wes Crosby contributed to this report