Once again Patrick Laine is the most interesting Finnish player of the starting NHL season. Despite that, after the glorious first NHL years, the Tampere’s NHL career has been more or less on the sidelines.
In his previous 111 NHL games, Laine has of course scored 108 (48+60) power points. Due to injuries, the last couple of seasons have been broken.
Although Laine’s points are superficially hard for the NHL level, the man’s career has been stagnant for a long time. Playing has been erratic, even frustratingly reluctant at times. It’s hard to put a lot of value on points scored in meaningless spring games.
However, the number of twists and turns in Laine’s career seems to be constant, and in the spring he hit the table with a big bang: the goal scorer who played on the wing for his age moved to the middle.
Now Columbus and Laine are starting a new season with amazing starting points. When the team meets Philadelphia early on Friday morning in the opening match on their home ice, Patrik Laine will operate as the team’s number one center!
Jumping from the wing to the center at the NHL level and at the age of 25 is a tough challenge for anyone.
– Maybe it’s a little easier today than it was in my time, who had a long career as a player and currently works as a development coach for New Jersey Esa Pirnes start.
– Playing styles and player material have changed since my time. Nowadays, there are not such strong playing places. The teams play more freely such a hybrid game. For example, playing with one’s head has changed. The tasks are precise, but they are performed in the order in which the area is entered. This might make Lainet easier, Pirnes continues.
Many think that playing in his own area is a big challenge for Lainee, who has moved to center forward. Duties were not always taken care of even in the role of a winger.
– Laine can sometimes play on the wing, which means the center gets an assistant center in that case, who himself played in the NHL, who works as JYP’s assistant coach Ville Nieminen hello from Pirne.
However, Nieminen does not stick only to the defensive game.
– Now you have to be able to rhythm the game by skating and passing. Must observe, anticipate and make technically narrow turns with skates. Knuckle takeovers and long defensive plays in the defensive zone are part of the whole. At some point, it will emerge whether this will materialize.
Physics question mark
In practice matches, as expected, Lainea had great difficulties with the starts, and the situation does not get any easier when the teams start playing seriously for series points. Night after night there are top-level centers who have wrestled in the starting circle throughout their careers. Last season, Laine’s starting percentage was 35, when, for example, With Aleksander Barkov it was 55.
– This is a big trendsetter, because it determines a lot about who the puck is on. It might take the whole shift, or at least the 10–20 seconds chasing the puck, if you lose the start, Pirnes sees.
If you think about the level of requirements of playing center in the NHL, and how few have been able to move from the wing to the center, it would be easy to see more threats than opportunities around Laine. On the other hand, Columbus as a team is not ready yet, so the time for an experiment is right now.
– This is a riddle. We will soon see if Laine has done the center work. Such skillful work, Nieminen states.
Laine’s physics is also a question mark. In previous seasons, the striker from Tampere has not been given the impression of a particularly tough player in terms of his physique. The club management of Columbus also hoped, if not even demanded, that at the end of the last season Laine would have a so-called tough summer.
The truth will inevitably come out if Laine plans to wrestle 82 matches against the best centers in the world. Repeated injuries are also haunting in the background. Can the body withstand even harder wrestling than before?
– After all, there was news that he had received a strong message that things must start happening now. Summer was important to him, and he went back to America earlier now. Maybe there has been a maturation, because he surely understands that this is a really important year for him. Especially when he wants to be a pace stick swinger and decisive player, says Pirnes.
A positive training season
The reports from Columbus, the main skull site, are very positive regarding the training season. Laine’s game worked, power was created and the team’s play showed the youngster’s top promise by Adam Fantill went well with Fantilli had even been put to live in the hotels of Laine and her girlfriend since the end of the summer.
– I have never seen such a mature and serious Laine before. He has become the leader of this group, following the team on a daily basis in The Athletic Aaron Portzline reports to Urheilu.
In any case, Laine’s success now does not depend on the support of the coaching. Surprisingly Mike Babcock’s promoted to coaching responsibility as a result of the firings Pascal Vincent knows Laine from his Winnipeg years.
– They really like each other and I think that is a big reason for the successful training season and his maturation process, Portzline continues.
How Laine will succeed in the middle is also a big question mark for Portzline.
– The player and the coaching believe in this. From what I’ve seen, the biggest question mark has to do with defense. He has to make the right choices so that the docks don’t have to take care of his responsibilities. That, in turn, requires that he moves constantly, and it is precisely his lack of skating that has previously been criticized.
“When they play Detroit and Philadelphia, I think he’ll be fine.” But ask me again when they’ve played against such top teams where the mid lane is clogged with top players, Portzline throws.
High expectations
After everything, the only thing that is certain is that Patrik Laine’s advances will be monitored with an even more precise magnifying glass than before. After two difficult seasons, a lot is expected from the player and now he is trying to return to the top level even in a new place.
– He finally has to play a full season in Columbus. He hasn’t done that and injuries have contributed to that. Now he gets to play at the place he wants and for the coach he wants. He will be watched closely, Portzline concludes.
Listen to ‘s NHL evening:
The NHL Regular Season started early on Wednesday Finnish time. Columbus starts its game early on Friday Finnish time as the host of Philadelphia.