BLOG: Oilers featured heavily in NHLPA Player Poll

EDMONTON, AB - Players around the National Hockey League have a high opinion of many things Orange & Blue.
The annual NHLPA Players Poll was released Wednesday. More than 500 players were canvassed from across the league on a variety of topics, on and off the ice, and the Edmonton Oilers were well represented throughout the results.
Captain Connor McDavid was far and away voted the player who 'if you needed to win one game, who is the one skater you would want on your team?' with a whopping 42.4 per cent of the vote. The league's leading scorer with 122 points was followed by Tuesday night's opponent Sidney Crosby (17.3 per cent), and Tampa Bay defenceman Victor Hedman (6.7 per cent). McDavid has only grown his lead from last season's poll where he beat Crosby by 13.7 percent, with a total NHLPA vote of 36.7 per cent.
McDavid's name was mentioned frequently in the results, appearing in five of the six categories he was eligible for in the on-ice section of the NHLPA poll, and once in the player personality section as the NHL's third-best role model.

The Oilers captain finished second to Patrick Kane as the game's best stick-handler (57.7 per cent to 22.8 per cent), which mirrors last season's poll results. McDavid was fourth behind Crosby, Florida's Aleksander Barkov, and Boston's Patrice Bergeron as the league's most complete player with 9.2 per cent of the vote.
With 18.3 per cent of the vote, he finished second between noted agitators Brad Marchand (26.4 per cent) and Tom Wilson (10.7 per cent) as the player 'you enjoy playing the least but would like to have on your team'. When it came to dishing the puck, McDavid (10.6 per cent) finished fourth behind Washington's Nicklas Backstrom (15.5 per cent), Patrick Kane (15.6 per cent), and teammate Leon Draisaitl (17.7 per cent) for the NHL's best passer.

Possibly the most impressive aspect of Draisaitl's first-place finish in the passing category is the fact the German is a two-time 50-goal scorer and is second in the NHL with 55 tallies on the year. The man with the paddle is renowned for his ability to dish as much as he is for his ability to score. Leon has twice finished top-two in the league in assists, including leading the NHL with 67 in the 2019-20 season.
The dynamic duo wasn't the only Edmonton icon mentioned in the poll. Rogers Place was voted the arena with the second-best ice in the NHL with 13.7 per cent of the 459 votes cast. Only the Bell Centre in Montreal (39.6 per cent) was voted a better place to put steel to ice.
Fans can see the full results from the poll HERE.