It's not BS. Matthews doesn't play a defense-first style, regardless of how "good" his defending is. His defending could be the best in the world but if he doesn't play a defense-first style, he doesn't play a defense-first style. It's as simple as that.
As for Laine scoring 50 goals:
#1 His line was not good in FEL. Heck, take the playoffs. Laine had 10+5=15. His linemates for most of the playoffs had 1+3=4 and 0+4=4 points. You see the issue here? After he got promoted to the first line for the last 3 games, he could generate far more scoring chances. He played especially well with Kristian Kuusela
#2 Laine is u-18. He's one season behind in comparison to a certain American center prospect. At this age, the scoring can increase drastically in one season, we've seen improvements in the range of 50% in scoring.
#3 If you look at how Laine scores goals, many of them are off low threat shots. He's a sniper that's extremely rare in NHL. He can shoot from any position, with any type of a shot and he can do it swiftly and he can do it while at full speed. All of these are rare traits.
#4 Laine did excellently internationally. In the WHCs, he played the wing where he's pretty uncomfortable on, but still scored 12 points and outproduced the rest of his line that consisted of high quality NHL players. He also was unbelievably good against Canada until he got injured by Perry and can generate scoring chances consistently even against NHL players.
Saying that Laine will score 50 goals in NHL doesn't mean that he needs to do it next season. The last one to score even 30 at that age was Skinner. I do expect Laine to outperform him.
As for Laine scoring 50 goals:
#1 His line was not good in FEL. Heck, take the playoffs. Laine had 10+5=15. His linemates for most of the playoffs had 1+3=4 and 0+4=4 points. You see the issue here? After he got promoted to the first line for the last 3 games, he could generate far more scoring chances. He played especially well with Kristian Kuusela
#2 Laine is u-18. He's one season behind in comparison to a certain American center prospect. At this age, the scoring can increase drastically in one season, we've seen improvements in the range of 50% in scoring.
#3 If you look at how Laine scores goals, many of them are off low threat shots. He's a sniper that's extremely rare in NHL. He can shoot from any position, with any type of a shot and he can do it swiftly and he can do it while at full speed. All of these are rare traits.
#4 Laine did excellently internationally. In the WHCs, he played the wing where he's pretty uncomfortable on, but still scored 12 points and outproduced the rest of his line that consisted of high quality NHL players. He also was unbelievably good against Canada until he got injured by Perry and can generate scoring chances consistently even against NHL players.
Saying that Laine will score 50 goals in NHL doesn't mean that he needs to do it next season. The last one to score even 30 at that age was Skinner. I do expect Laine to outperform him.
Well to be fair it did a long time ago. Not too surprisingly some Finns are pumping Laine like he is the second coming of Lemieux or something like that. We get it Finland has not had too many elite prospects ever so its natural to get wooed by one but still c'mon. There were even a bunch of fans that stated that Laine is more valuable than every single asset a team has from future draft picks and prospects to roster players. Hard to believe that was not just opinnion of just one madman but others tought the same as well 
