From Second Overall to Last Chance: The Patrik Laine Story

2016 was a banner year for the Canadian NHL teams, depending on your definition of a banner. The Toronto Maple Leafs got the first overall pick, followed by the Winnipeg Jets at 2nd overall, followed by Edmonton, Vancouver and Calgary at 4, 5 and 6 respectively. Montreal and Ottawa didn't face much better selecting 8th and 10th. The picks ranged in success, but all eyes were on Toronto and Winnipeg, and the debate between Auston Matthews and Patrik Laine.

It might seem silly now, as Matthews was named the next captain of the Maple Leafs, while Laine has just been traded for a former third-round pick, and Columbus even had to add a sweetener to do it, but there was a time, where people were seriously debating Matthews vs. Laine.

There are legitimate counterpoints, and I would not fault any team for preferring Matthews. There are risks with Laine. Laine’s lack of complete game and Matthews’ extra season of proving himself — and doing so at an extremely high level — lower the risk on his projection. He could be one of the game’s best players and a centerpiece center for a decade. But I think Laine at the very least has a chance to be something special, and I’d almost always take a chance on special.

In the eyes of some, it came down to as little as Matthews being a centre and Laine being a winger, and if Laine was a centre, there was a good chance he would have been top dog. Either way, it was a debate many people assumed we would be having for years and years to come.

Flying High

And with Laine's first year as a Jet, it looked like the two players were close. In Laine's rookie season, he scored 36 goals and 64 points in 73 games. Pretty close to Matthews' 40 goals and 69 points in 82 games. Matthews got the nod for rookie of the year with the Calder, but who knows if Laine played the full 82 games?

That was the narrative going into the next season, and for his part Laine stepped up again, beating his goal and point total for his rookie year, while playing in all 82 games for the Jets. It was a statistically better year than Matthews, who missed 20 games due to injury, and all seemed to be going the way everyone predicted in 2016.

And who could possibly forget this game? It was a defining moment in Laine's young career. After falling down 4-0 in the second period, on the strength of a hat-trick, Laine and the Jets beat Matthews and the Leafs. The cherry on top was that Laine's hat-trick goal and overtime winner came directly after Matthews had his own breakaway chance, but he was stopped by future teammate Michael Hutchinson.

A big knock against Laine before his drafting was his 200-foot play, being seen as a bit of a one-dimensional offensive player. But he combatted this by being a plus player in his first two seasons and making a fantastic defensive play, but it just took one of the worst offensive decisions in recent memory:

In his second season, Laine even had good numbers in his playoff run, where the Jets made it all the way to the Western Conference Final, where they ran into the first-year Vegas Golden Knights, who beat them in 5 games. But Laine scored 12 points in 17 games.

Unfortunately, that would be the peak of Laine's career for now. His production went down 14 goals and 20 points in the same amount of games. He would also post a much lower -24, and Auston Matthews would start to pull away.

The next year, Laine's goal production went down further, and he missed a good chunk of the season as well. In fact, after his third season, Laine would not be able to play a full season.

The Bleu-Blanc-et-Rouge

The reign of Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton has been punctuated by one simple philosophy: buy low. The first big acquisition was Kirby Dach, who, outside of tearing his ACL and MCL in the first game of last season, has been a runaway success.

The next year was Alex Newhook from the Colorado Avalanche. While Newhook wasn't the same success as Dach, he still had a solid year. He broke his career highs in goals and points, but also missed almost 30 games due to injury.

This year, the man of the hour is Patrik Laine. He has the highest draft pedigree of the players mentioned above, is older and further into his development, but also has much more success than Dach or Newhook.

Even those years in Columbus were still pretty good. If he kept up his pace in his first full year in Columbus, he would have scored 38 goals and 82 points, which is still pretty good. That would be far and away better than any player the Canadiens had that year. Matter of fact, just transplanting his stats onto the 2021-22 Canadiens, he would lead the team in goals and be second in points in much fewer games.

Plus, Laine will likely have much better linemates in Montreal. Laine played with a rotating cast of linemates, some good, but most are a little bit lacking.

In 2022-23, Laine played some time early in the season with Johnny Gaudreau, who is a very good hockey player, but that playing time almost disappeared later in the year. The most common linemates in 2022-23 were Jack Roslovic, Kent Johnson, Boone Jenner and Kirill Marchenko.

Johnson and Marchenko are still very young and growing as players, where Jenner and Roslovic are fine, but not the most complimentary to a skilled sniper like Laine. Similar story with what little he played in 2023-24. Laine played with rookie Adam Fantilli, Alexandre Texier, Dmitri Voronkov, Boone Jenner and Yegor Chinakhov. All young, developing players (minus Jenner).

When Laine starts the season with the Canadiens, he will have really good linemates, like Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky, Kirby Dach and/or Alex Newhook. These are all better players right now compared to those Blue Jackets players, and will compliment Laine's skills better.

So, is this Laine's last chance? Likely not really. But it might be his last really good shot at finding footing in the league.

He is good enough to always have a spot somewhere, even if its just as a roster spot on teams like Chicago or Utah trying to reach the cap floor, or mentors for their young players, but this feels like the last hope in keeping his career away from being a rental gun-for-hire.

Time will tell if this year Laine beats the allegations and has a fantastic season with the Habs or not. But it will be fun to watch either way.