Plural
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- Mar 10, 2011
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I didn't get to see that. The butchering started before it and I had to take the skateboard and scram.
I didn't get to see that. The butchering started before it and I had to take the skateboard and scram.
Good top speed, good glide. While I agree that his skating is not good, it could be worse for a player whose weakness is his skating. It's not even as bad as Barkov's was.
Yet Barkov was rated 4/5 for skating as can be seen here: https://youtu.be/b3cGoR6RdJU?t=217
You call that bad skating, so by your logic Laine is 4.5 or even 5/5. I think Barkov was the better skater.
- Feb 23, 2014
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I go by what I see, not by what a stat sheet says.
The trainer who will be working on his skating for this summer as well specifically talked about which aspects of his skating they worked on during the last summer. He mentioned that explosiveness and agility weren't worked on. Considering that Laine's skating is considered good in other aspects and his technique is considered good as well, taking into account the fact that those aspects improved dramatically over the summer, I believe that being hopeful that such development will happen with regards to his explosiveness and agility isn't unwarranted. You have to keep the context in mind.
Plural
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Yeah, sure you know better than professional scouts.
There seems to be a whole lot people in Laine threads who think they have better understanding than the collective of hockey professionals through the world.
It resembles the talk you hear from vaccine opposers.
Yeah, sure you know better than professional scouts.
You know that Puljujärvi is one of the best skaters in this draft, 5/5? Here is the skating competition against Laine and Pulju and you can see he is not bad skater, he just need those first few steps and agility. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b06FkGNgGlk
Artaud
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- Jul 21, 2012
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Yeah, sure you know better than professional scouts.
To be fair, Barkov was really not a 4/5 skater in his draft year. All of these rankings out of 5 analysis from that guy seem to be very high....
This.
Also Laine had slow start on USA game, but he was one of the best (easily outplaying certain AM) in the other half of the game. And we can say that only pure luck allowed prevented Laine to score that game. Twice.
Certain AM also made 0 points against Canada and Russia, 1 assist against Finland with great help of Laine and especially Koskinen, who was not playing that good at the start of the tournament. Czech team was weak, and you shouldn't count that game either.
This year at WHC there weren't that many good teams. Canada, Russia and Finland, I'd say.
Next tier was USA, Czech, Sweden and Denmark. Germany and Switzerland were also close.
Then there were once so great Slovakia along with Latvia, Norway and France.
If you only count goals against Canada, Finland and Russia, that makes the scoring board quite odd, and the sample size reduces to meaningless numbers.
Yeah, sure you know better than professional scouts.
What? What do you think Laine's skating would be listed at? 3/5? Your arbitrary analysis on a stat sheet is what I disagree with, not that a scout has his skating at 4/5. These are prospects, after all. Skating was even considered Barkov's big weakness.
3:47-3:53 here:
Feel free to disagree but I think that that's slow and the acceleration is not good.
And Jokinen not passing to him prevented one goal.
But the race was already over from the get-go. Laine's much inferior acceleration showed there. He could keep up after that only because of his top speed.
That race doesn't represent well skating in a real game situation though. Just imagine if there had been a couple quick transitions and tighter turns before the finish line. Pulju would have blown him out of the water.
You didn't watch them playing then.
Barkov is one of my favourite players, and I did watch their respective season quite intensively. Barkov at that age was not better skater than Laine, though not much worse either.
Both Barkov and Laine seem to be much slower than they are because of that long stride.
BB88
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- Jan 19, 2015
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No, probably also a 4/5 since compared to the overall prospect pool his skating is considered good (and he is a top prospect for a reason) but Barkov was better, it's still quite close. Laine's skating is also his biggest weakness. Barkov has improved a lot, so can Laine.
No way Laine would get 3/5.
teravaineSAROS
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- Jul 29, 2015
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While I like to use this to diss Jokinen for not passing to Laine, if you look at this:
https://streamable.com/fh7n
You see that Jokinen, a good NHL player, is skating the entire time and certainly not trying to be slow or anything. You look at Laine's helmet at the bottom of the screen and see just how much faster he is skating.
His biggest weakness is acceleration and explosiveness (like most scouts have stated) but his top speed is quite good IMO. Skating isn't just about speed.
Yes, that's true.
But I have faith in this succeeding! (Quick translation: Explosiveness, agility. First step, accelerating from a full stop)
I agree definitely here. Barkov's skating was pretty bad at that time. Definitely not better than 3/5, if even that good. Laine is for sure the better skater of those two when comparing how they were as 18 year olds. I am basing this only on the over 50 games I have seen each of them play at that age.
Why really trust scouts so much? The same scouts praised both Daigle and Yakupov to the heavens. I was in fact myself very sceptical about both of them. I didn't see anything that great in Daigle. And I also was not sure if Yakupov will ever be a star player.
X66
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- Aug 18, 2008
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I think his agility is also a weak point.
In saying all of this, he still does have strong points on his skates I.E his balance, which is elite. If he shields the puck, good look knocking him over.
All the things I mentioned he's not good at (acceleration, explosiveness, agility) can all be worked at, but they are the main reasons I have Matthews and Puljujarvi ahead of Laine TODAY.
Vision and awareness.
And skating is so important part of a hockey player's skillset that elite skating can make a huge difference.
X66
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All the top 3 players are franchise changers IMO
Nothing wrong with saying Puljujarvi is/might be better than Laine.
Puljujarvi has the edge on speed, play-making and two-way play IMO. He also can score goals, and might be able to score goals easier in tight than Laine does because of his style of game.
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