Patrik Laine has been an interesting case study for the Montreal Canadiens this season. He has been struggling to stay healthy with the knee injury that kept him out for the season's first quarter and a variety of illnesses and ailments that kept him out of some games and practices.
He has also been unreliable at five-on-five due to some shoddy defensive play and there are some games where he is invisble. However, you look at the league's leaderboard and he is third with 13 powerplay goals in just 36 games.
Arpon Basu measured the pace of Laine's goalscoring prowess on the powerplay and hypothesized that his pace would put him at 24 powerplay goals this season if he had played every game. That pace would put him at nearly 30 powerplay goals alone over an 82-game season.
The interesting part about that is the Canadiens don't necessarily have a true distributor on their first powerplay unit. Nick Suzuki has been fine in the role and Lane Hutson is on a trajectory to be one of the best offensive defensemen in the league. However, there is still plenty of room for that unit to grow.
The most intriguing part of the Canadiens' future powerplay unit is the arrival of Ivan Demidov. He is the elite playmaker the Canadiens need from the half-wall, and we can picture the top of the powerplay unit that features Demidov, Hutson, and Laine all around the flanks. Demidov and Hutson finding Laine on the left flank could put Laine on a powerplay pace even greater than what he is on now.
13 of Patrik Laine’s 16 goals this season have come on the PP (81.3%)
— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) March 15, 2025
Only 5 players since 1933-34 have scored at least 81% of their goals in a season on the PP (min. 15 total goals)#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/rYa7f2ETpz
It'd be difficult to justify keeping Laine after next season if he wants an extension in the annual salary range of where he is now. Kent Hughes will not want to pay Laine $8.7 million annually to just be a powerplay specialist St. Louis doesn't trust to put on the ice in defensive situations. However, if Laine feels at home in Montreal and wants to stay with this group, he could take a pay cut and a longer-term contract.
Only five players have scored over 81% of their goals in a season on the powerplay, which makes Laine one of the best powerplay specialists of all-time if he continues on that trajectory. If the Canadiens can find a way to keep him on the roster, it'd be wise to do it for the offensive future of the team.
Special teams is one of the leading factors of postseason success, and the Canadiens already have a powerplay and penalty kill that sits in the top-half of the league. If Montreal wants their rebuild to continue to be a success, they'll want to continue that trend into their contending years.