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Draisaitl picks his all-time Oilers team, talks life without hockey

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Leon Draisaitl answers questions from fans over Zoom, including how his line will carry over chemistry when hockey returns and who is on his all-time Edmonton Oilers team.

Oilers star (and NHL points leader) Leon Draisaitl answered several fan questions with Dave Amber for “Hockey at Home.”

Here are some of the subjects Draisaitl covered:

Draisaitl picks his all-time Oilers, talks running line without Connor McDavid

The more nuts-and-bolts hockey stuff was pretty straightforward.

Take, for instance, Draisaitl’s all-time Oilers picks. While he didn’t directly say he’d make such a team, Draisaitl admitted it would be fun to line up with Wayne Gretzky and Connor McDavid. His goalie choice was obvious (Grant Fuhr), but it was amusing to see him try to pick a second defenseman after Paul Coffey.

Draisaitl also discussed how well things have been going during the latest attempt to move him away from McDavid. That has indeed been going well, as Draisaitl is finding nice chemistry with Kailer Yamamoto and Tyler Ennis, while Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has also been in that mix.

Pondering life without hockey

That more nitty-gritty hockey stuff aside, some of the best fun comes later in the interview.

When a young fan asked Draisaitl what he would do if he wasn’t a hockey player, Draisaitl struggled. He thought that, if he wasn’t an NHL player, Draisaitl would still be involved in the game somehow.

Then, after taking some time to reflect, he stumbled upon a Plan B or C ... um, soccer player? Amusingly, Draisaitl explained that he gave up hockey for a year when he was eight or nine to focus on soccer.

Thankfully for Draisaitl and the Oilers, that didn’t stick. Perhaps Draisaitl should have followed that up with “Hey, kids, maybe don’t plan your life as hockey or nothing,” but this remains a fun interview.

And not just because of this fan’s hat:

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James O’Brien is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @cyclelikesedins.