Canadiens: Four Nations Faceoff a Chance for Patrik Laine to Reset in midst of Uncertain Future

Despite having 406 points in 508 career games, keeping a mostly point-per-game scoring pace over his career, and seemingly being unstoppable at times from the same spot on the ice, Laine has a murky reputation in the NHL, one bereft with accusations of arrogance, self-entitlement, and just bringing a general toxicity to each of the teams he’s played for. There was a lot of intrigue and speculation when Laine was traded from Winnipeg for the player taken directly after him, with the third overall pick of the Columbus Blue Jackets, Pierre-Luc Dubois, somehow enduring an even rockier tenure in Winnipeg, before being shipped off to Los Angeles and then now Washington.

Laine’s numbers in Columbus paint a different picture of how his performance was perceived there, being seen as lazy and not interested in the team’s culture and future despite continuing his same scoring pace alongside the now-deceased Johnny Gaudreau. Laine’s comments about his time in Columbus say enough about how he perceived his teammates, and I’m personally not surprised that his attempt at an apology was met with some expletives that can’t be said here. So, after parts of four seasons in Columbus, Laine now finds himself in Montreal, and after a torrid start that had him looking like, well, Patrik Laine, he’s gone back to looking like, well, Patrik Laine.

With 12-6-18 totals over 28 games, Laine’s numbers with the Habs paint another similar picture to those in Columbus. Laine has shown true potential at times, and the skill and ability are clearly still there, but his recent stretch leaves his early scoring numbers feeling empty, and things haven’t exactly gone entirely smoothly with St. Louis either. All of Laine's points came in his first 20 games with Montreal, and since an OT-loss against the New Jersey Devils on January 25th, Laine has posted just 10 shots and a -9 rating over his last eight games, being visibly frustrated at times on the bench. With it becoming increasingly evident that Samuel Montembeault can't exactly handle a 50-game workload, and Jakub Dobes going back to looking like an AHL goalie, the hype of Montreal's hot start just a few weeks back has died down tremendously, and now the question, as with the past few seasons, likely turns to the future.