Leon Draisaitl’s blunt reaction to surprise benching vs. Flyers

Leon Draisaitl played hero for the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday night, scoring the overtime winner against the Philadelphia Flyers in the team’s first win of the 2024-25 season — but not before he was benched in the third period.

The German superstar was skipped by head coach Kris Knoblauch a couple of times in the final frame after he took a cross-checking penalty with just eight seconds left in the second period on Flyers forward Garnet Hathaway.

Despite a lack of ice time in the third, Draisaitl assisted on Evan Bouchard’s tying goal in the final minutes, and scored just 56 seconds into the extra frame to help the Oilers escape with a victory.

“You have to ask him that,” Draisaitl said when asked why he was benched by his head coach in the third, according to The Athletic’s Daniel Nugent-Bowman. The 28-year-old did call the penalty “unnecessary” but didn’t elaborate further on the play.

The benching must have lit a fire under No. 29, who was a catalyst in helping Edmonton get in the win column for the first time this season.

The superstar continued: “We’re obviously scratching for points here early on, so any point we can get is big. And it was nice to come back and win that game. It’s always nice to get the first one out of the way, and hopefully, we’ll create some momentum, create some confidence in our group and just go from there.”

Leon Draisaitl, Oilers finally back to their winning ways

Despite benching one of his best players, Knoblauch was happy with how his team responded after a slow start.

“Our best players really came up clutch,” he said afterwards, per NHL.com’s Cam Tait. “On the game-tying goal, Leon makes a play on the wall. McDavid makes the pass and Bouch scores. We needed those guys to make key plays at key moments, and they definitely did tonight.”

The head coach admitted that the Oilers made things harder than they needed to be on Tuesday, although he’s confident in the long-term outlook of the squad.

“I think there was a lot of adversity that we self-inflicted,” Knoblauch said. “Obviously, the penalties were not ideal. The amount of time we were penalty-killing made it hard, especially trying to generate some offence. But in the long run, it looks good for us that we were able to fight through all that and still come out with a victory tonight. But I just thought tonight, we just made it harder on ourselves than it had to be.”

The Oil were down 2-0 and 3-2 and managed to fight back both times, improving to 1-3 after a winless start to the campaign. Now with a victory under their belts, Edmonton will look to keep the momentum going for a quick road trip they will take them through Nashville on Thursday and Dallas on Saturday.

Puck drop between the Oilers and Predators is set for just past 8:00 p.m.

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