Patrik Laine looks game ready?

If you saw video of the Montreal Canadiens newest addition, Patrik Laine practicing, you are as amazed as I am about how he looks.

I'm not sure how professional athletes do it, sure their bodies are put through much more than regular everyday people. They also have the top therapists and doctors to care for them, but it's still crazy to see them go through what they do and return to action so soon. Laine's case is pretty incredible, considering it almost looked like he had broken his leg when he went down with an injury.

It wasn't a pretty sight watching it live and the replays in slow motion look even worse, legs aren't supposed to bend like that. So the news on October 1st that Laine would be sidelined for two to three months with a sprained left knee, isn't all that surprising. But the fact that he is back on the ice, shifting his weight from side to side is pretty impressive.

I don't expect that he will be back in the coming days, but a return before Christmas would be a nice shiny gift for the Canadiens offensive attack. And though it will take some time for him to return to game speed and shake off the rust, he will be a sight for sore eyes. One player isn't going to be relied on to score all of the goals for the Habs, but he will definitely be leaned on to help out.

With 40 or 50 out of the question, what is realistic?

So, lets be realistic here, Laine is likely not going to score 50, nor 40 goals in just five months of action. If he does, it would be Wayne Gretzky type scoring, and I don't believe we will be seeing that. With that said, I do expect that Laine will still have a fire in his belly to prove he can still get the job done.

But what exactly will that look like? He is going to play in the top six, and I assume that Canadiens bench boss Martin St. Louis is going to put him in a position to get the best out of him. Regardless of who it's with, there is a fair chance that he finds himself with some of the Canadiens' best offensive players.

I like the idea of Laine with Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky, but I get that Cole Caufield is likely going to find his way back to Suzuki's wing. Having said that, I will predict that he plays with Suzuki and Slafkovsky. I think the two playmakers, and especially Slafkovsky's power forward game will be huge for his production.

The former second overall pick was selected high because he has elite tools and I expect that he will shine bright in the Bell Centre spotlight. I will predict a 20-25 goal season, though I think I am confident that over 82 games in Montreal, he would have nearly doubled that.