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LW Patrik Laine - Tappara, Liiga (2016 Draft) VI

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Eternal Leaf said:
I think he might put on a show today.

The Canadians have walked through this tournament with ease. Finland might catch them off guard.
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I've said it before but I'm guessing our defense will not allow Laine to put on a show.
I'm afraid they'll be in huge trouble with Canadas speed&skill and 5on5 play will be tough to watch.
 
BB88 said:
I've said it before but I'm guessing our defense will not allow Laine to put on a show.
I'm afraid they'll be in huge trouble with Canadas speed&skill and 5on5 play will be tough to watch.
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I'm confident they'll try to go for a big hit for few times and that'll be the time for Laine to fly past them and get a scoring chance. If he just played left wing, we could even see at least flashes dominance. The difference between LW and RW is that big for him. He has tons of moves literally in his bag as LW and alot of experience from it. Haven't seen his signature move / cut to middle move in the whole tourney due to RW.
 
QnebO said:
I'm confident they'll try to go for a big hit for few times and that'll be the time for Laine to fly past them and get a scoring chance. If he just played left wing, we could even see at least flashes dominance. The difference between LW and RW is that big for him. He has tons of moves literally in his bag as LW and alot of experience from it. Haven't seen his signature move / cut to middle move in the whole tourney due to RW.
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His game definitely is hurting by him not playing Lw, he has build his game this year for Lw side, his moves are effective from the left side with him being a right hand shot.
He can't use those moves from the right side.

I've noticed that they haven't also played one timers for him that much in the last 2 games, I really hope that's another thing that change.
We need his one timer to against Canada.
 
Eternal Leaf said:
I think he might put on a show today.

The Canadians have walked through this tournament with ease. Finland might catch them off guard.
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I sincerely cannot see too much problems against the Finns. Their D is atrocious. They have two excellent two way centers but helping out the D will take all the oomph right out of Finnish attack. I am not expecting many goals for Canada either but I feel very confident of the win.
 
Murky said:
I sincerely cannot see too much problems against the Finns. Their D is atrocious. They have two excellent two way centers but helping out the D will take all the oomph right out of Finnish attack. I am not expecting many goals for Canada either but I feel very confident of the win.
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To call Finland's defence atrocious is pure ignorance and arrogance. I very much doubt that you have seen even much of the play of these Finnish defencemen. They have in fact played pretty good defence in this tournament. And most of them are top KHL defencemen and two of them are top AHL defencemen. Jaakola is in fact a pretty good defenceman, and none of them has been really bad and risky in this tournament. Sure Canada has a more impressive defence if you look at the names. But hockey is not about names. It's about what you do on the ice. Finland has beaten star packed teams before with worse defence than we have now.

What I'm worried about though is our goalie Koskinen. He might not be up to it. Lets in softies way too often in the national team. And also I'm a bit afraid that Finland's general skating will not be enough against Canada. We don't have a particularly fast team this time. Pihlström and Aho are probably the best skaters in the team. Others are in fact pretty average skaters.
 
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Murky said:
I sincerely cannot see too much problems against the Finns. Their D is atrocious. They have two excellent two way centers but helping out the D will take all the oomph right out of Finnish attack. I am not expecting many goals for Canada either but I feel very confident of the win.
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Agree, we are missing top 4 d-men (Määttä, Ristolainen, Vatanen, Jokipakka), we have maybe 2 ok defencmen on the roster, rest are not good enough to compete against Canada's offence. Goaltending is an issue as well with Rinne/Rask unavailable I fear that Canadians will absolutely humiliate our sub-par defence.
 
Ippenator said:
To call Finland's defence atrocious is pure ignorance and arrogance. I very much doubt that you have seen even much of the play of these Finnish defencemen.
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I have lived in Finland for 20 years and I even have a season ticket to Nordis. You do not have to agree with my opinion of their D, of course.

However, this is in the wrong thread. I was confused after reading the GDT and I thought I was posting there. My mistake.
 
AngeFIN said:
Agree, we are missing top 4 d-men (Määttä, Ristolainen, Vatanen, Jokipakka), we have maybe 2 ok defencmen on the roster, rest are not good enough to compete against Canada's offence. Goaltending is an issue as well with Rinne/Rask unavailable I fear that Canadians will absolutely humiliate our sub-par defence.
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Goaltending would be very good with Saros. I don't trust Koskinen that much.

We just lost our best d-man, Salmela with a back injury. Our defence have played better than expected lately, so probably they will do just OK.
 
Halberdier said:
Goaltending would be very good with Saros. I don't trust Koskinen that much.

We just lost our best d-man, Salmela with a back injury. Our defence have played better than expected lately, so probably they will do just OK.
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I think it is obvious Jaakola is the best d-man on the team. He is clearly the most solid in their own zone, and usually doesn't **** up the first pass. Kukkonen always loses the 1on1 battles behind the net. Ohtamaa with the puck is just always scary, never know who he might give it up to. Hietanen can't defend, if his life depended on it, however he makes good passes. Pokka and Lindell both are sloppy at times, I think the skill to defend is there, but the concentration is maybe lacking every now and then, with and without the puck. Salmela is decent with the puck, but without it he is really weak. Kivistö I've actually been pretty impressed with, especially with the puck. I think he has been second best after Jaakola.

How this connects to Laine: if they can keep the puck in the offensive zone the d-men are not the problem. But some players just can't give a good pass coming out of the zone, if their life depended on it(Kukkonen and Ohtamaa). That being said, you can't just go blaming the d-men, if you can't score.
 
So far at this tournament

Laine 6.57 (points / 60min) after 6 games
Laine 5.64 (points / 60min) if he won't score any points against Canada and plays normal ~15minutes
Matthews 2.92 (points / 60min) after 7 games.
 
Sustaining that PP60 throughout an NHL regular season and having 20 minutes of ice time per match, Laine would finish with 180 points.
 
The 2 best teams playing this tournament. It's an interesting test for Laine. A lot of great players in this game. Can Laine be one of the better ones? A great game to showcase himself if he wants to make #1 even more a discussion point.
 
Laine has to be one of the better skaters on the ice today between both teams to throw some gas into that #1 OA discussion fire.
 
Brewsky said:
Laine has to be one of the better skaters on the ice today between both teams to throw some gas into that #1 OA discussion fire.
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It would be interesting if he scored 3 points again.

Matthews didn't score tonight (even if it was close) and he had much better linemates this time. If Laine puts on a show against Canada it would make the decision a little bit harder. I know it's one game and all.. maybe this is just the homer in me wanting that first #1 Finnish pick.
 
Gabranth said:
It would be interesting if he scored 3 points again.

Matthews didn't score tonight (even if it was close) and he had much better linemates this time. If Laine puts on a show against Canada it would make the decision a little bit harder. I know it's one game and all.. maybe this is just the homer in me wanting that first #1 Finnish pick.
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Laine could score a hattrick and still end up #2 overall. Toronto really needs that center but if Stamkos lands in there it would be interesting, since Stamkos and Nylander could be pretty good 1C and 2C. At least without Stamkos Toronto will select Matthews 99%. I think we all know that tho.
 
Gabranth said:
It would be interesting if he scored 3 points again.

Matthews didn't score tonight (even if it was close) and he had much better linemates this time. If Laine puts on a show against Canada it would make the decision a little bit harder. I know it's one game and all.. maybe this is just the homer in me wanting that first #1 Finnish pick.
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The only people who care are biased and irrational posters on this website.

It won't make Hunters job any harder. He should already know who he is going to draft.
 
aka Ude said:
Laine could score a hattrick and still end up #2 overall. Toronto really needs that center but if Stamkos lands in there it would be interesting, since Stamkos and Nylander could be pretty good 1C and 2C. At least without Stamkos Toronto will select Matthews 99%. I think we all know that tho.
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Pretty much, yeah. Laine will be a good player for the Jets. It will be fun watching him, I'm Hawks fun but still Finnish at heart. So of course I want to see him do well and it's been a while since we've had a prospect like him. Barkov's great n all, but Laine is more exciting to watch. In the Ovechkin kinda way.
 
aka Ude said:
Laine could score a hattrick and still end up #2 overall. Toronto really needs that center but if Stamkos lands in there it would be interesting, since Stamkos and Nylander could be pretty good 1C and 2C. At least without Stamkos Toronto will select Matthews 99%. I think we all know that tho.
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Matthews and Stamkos are a much better combination stylistically than Laine and Stamkos, in my opinion.

I think it would be a big gamble for the Leafs to think that Stamkos can be a #1 C on a championship caliber team 2-3 years from now.
 
aka Ude said:
Laine could score a hattrick and still end up #2 overall. Toronto really needs that center but if Stamkos lands in there it would be interesting, since Stamkos and Nylander could be pretty good 1C and 2C. At least without Stamkos Toronto will select Matthews 99%. I think we all know that tho.
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Who says Laine could not turn to center at the future? He is a special talent and can learn any thing he wants to.

Just learn to win faceoffs on a "bad" level and you have Evgeny Malkin in your team.

That center position stone isn't turned off yet, I quarantee it. Laine lives about a puck and some team will convert him to center. Coach Jalonen already put him to his off wing to learn new thing and guy leads the point scoring table. Insane.
 

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