Player Discussion Patrik Laine: Part 2 - Healthy Living Edition

  • We sincerely apologize for the extended downtime. Our hosting provider, XenForo Cloud, encountered a major issue with their backup system, which unfortunately resulted in the loss of some critical data from the past year.

    What This Means for You:

    • If you created an account after March 2024, it no longer exists. You will need to sign up again to access the forum.
    • If you registered before March 2024 but changed your email, username, or password in the past year, those changes were lost. You’ll need to update your account details manually once you're logged in.
    • Threads and posts created within the last year have been restored.

    Our team is working with Xenforo Cloud to recover data using backups, sitemaps, and other available resources. We know this is frustrating, and we deeply regret the impact on our community. We are taking steps with Xenforo Cloud to ensure this never happens again. This is work in progress. Thank you for your patience and support as we work through this.

    In the meantime, feel free to join our Discord Server
If NHL could dress 13 forwards, then Laine will an ideal 13th F. He would play all 2 minutes on each PP, and nothing else. Yes, he could handle the whole 2 minutes, because he just spends his energy on the swing only (shooting), and nothing else, no need to skate much neither. Just stands there and shoots.

Laine will be the best 13F of all-time.

What am I reading? A player who's 30+ goalscorer and near ppg player when healthy should be a 13th forward? :help:
 
  • Love
Reactions: the


What happened to Laine’s skating?!


He's probably playing with a partial acl/mcl/pcl/meniscus tear.

Left knee doesn't have full stability so he can't put much weight on it without it giving up (and risking a complete tear).

It also has incidence in the accuracy of his movements, this is why his passing is way off.
 
They don't. Caufield has better speed and way better acceleration.
That is like the first myth you learn when scouting. Small guys look fast, hard-working because they always move their feet. In reality, Caufield is not significantly better than Laine. I do not want to be harsh, but first two steps for CC is still within stick reach for Laine :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Marioesque
The funny thing is that people complain how slow he is, but if you compare the real data, he is almost identical to Caufield.
Simply not true
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_20250327_085035_Chrome.jpg
    Screenshot_20250327_085035_Chrome.jpg
    74.6 KB · Views: 1
  • Screenshot_20250327_085631_Chrome.jpg
    Screenshot_20250327_085631_Chrome.jpg
    65.9 KB · Views: 2
  • Screenshot_20250327_085544_Chrome.jpg
    Screenshot_20250327_085544_Chrome.jpg
    71.6 KB · Views: 1
  • Like
Reactions: Andrei79
Simply not true

Me when I lie
OK, let me interpret the data for you guys.
1743081293815.png

Max speed is similar, both are below league average. Distance per 60, no significant difference as well. Amount of speed bursts is obviously higher with Caufield, because he played 30 more games and plays more ice-time. If you prorate it to number of speed bursts per 60, you realize that Laine has 23 speed bursts above 18 mph per 60 minutes of game while Caufield has 27. To give you a benchmark, Dvorak has 44.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Marioesque
OK, let me interpret the data for you guys.
View attachment 1000382
Max speed is similar, both are below league average. Distance per 60, no significant difference as well. Amount of speed bursts is obviously higher with Caufield, because he played 30 more games and plays more ice-time. If you prorate it to number of speed bursts per 60, you realize that Laine has 23 speed bursts above 18 mph per 60 minutes of game while Caufield has 27. To give you a benchmark, Dvorak has 44.
Yeah man looks identical you’re right
 
  • Like
Reactions: The Gr8 Dane
OK, let me interpret the data for you guys.
View attachment 1000382
Max speed is similar, both are below league average. Distance per 60, no significant difference as well. Amount of speed bursts is obviously higher with Caufield, because he played 30 more games and plays more ice-time. If you prorate it to number of speed bursts per 60, you realize that Laine has 23 speed bursts above 18 mph per 60 minutes of game while Caufield has 27. To give you a benchmark, Dvorak has 44.
So Caufield is better everywhere
 
Yeah man looks identical you’re right

So Caufield is better everywhere
"The funny thing is that people complain how slow he is, but if you compare the real data, he is almost identical to Caufield."

This is my original claim. Laine 23, Caufield 27 is almost identical (the difference is insignificant) if you compare it to someone like Dvorak who plays the game at high tempo (has 44 speed bursts per 60). Both players are below average on speed, Caufield is just slightly better, but nobody complains about it. Not as much as you complain about Laine.
 
"The funny thing is that people complain how slow he is, but if you compare the real data, he is almost identical to Caufield."

This is my original claim. Laine 23, Caufield 27 is almost identical (the difference is insignificant) if you compare it to someone like Dvorak who plays the game at high tempo (has 44 speed bursts per 60). Both players are below average on speed, Caufield is just slightly better, but nobody complains about it. Not as much as you complain about Laine.
You’re incorrect
 
Simply not true
So guys, let's take a deep dive at the numbers. When you put them in context, as you can see, Laine is inferior at everything. Thus, they're identical. Scouting 101.

Looking at the numbers and what the person claimed, they weren't far off. Laine's top speed is similar to Caufields. As pointed out by those stats.

Caufield has way more bursts over 20mph and that's not what the argument was about at all (also has 30 more games)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Egresch
OK, let me interpret the data for you guys.
View attachment 1000382
Max speed is similar, both are below league average. Distance per 60, no significant difference as well. Amount of speed bursts is obviously higher with Caufield, because he played 30 more games and plays more ice-time. If you prorate it to number of speed bursts per 60, you realize that Laine has 23 speed bursts above 18 mph per 60 minutes of game while Caufield has 27. To give you a benchmark, Dvorak has 44.

Exactly. Sometimes it's important to teach people how to read data.

Like how does one ignore a 30 game difference in a "total number of" stat and make conclusions from that? Is it just an error or on purpose?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Egresch
The main difference is that Cole is a media darling while Laine has been getting assassinated left and right.

Both players are probably slightly below average skaters and both players are probably slightly bad defensively. Laine is much better offensively on the PP, Cole is much better at 5v5.

I think its hard for a team to have both of them and retain great line chemistry. Movement should be entertained for whichever can make this roster better.
 
How Laine's skating looks next season (and what the data will say) will be more telling how it's going to be going forward.

His top speed for example was 22.56 in 22-23 season and he had 2 > 22mph speed bursts and 104 20+ mph (56 games played, so projected for 82 games those numbers would've been something like 3 & 152).

Comparing those numbers to this season, his top speed is down and his speed burst numbers are considerably down as well, I think it's a pretty fair assumption his skating is still hindered by the knee injury.

Since Caufield was brought up, his top speed last season (82gp) was 22.76 and he had 3 over 22mph speed bursts and 90 over 20mph.

I'm willing to bet though during 22-23 season more Columbus fans were complaining about how bad Laine's skating is and how he "doesn't move his feet" than Montreal fans were complaing about Caufield's skating last season.
 
How Laine's skating looks next season (and what the data will say) will be more telling how it's going to be going forward.

His top speed for example was 22.56 in 22-23 season and he had 2 > 22mph speed bursts and 104 20+ mph (56 games played, so projected for 82 games those numbers would've been something like 3 & 152).

Comparing those numbers to this season, his top speed is down and his speed burst numbers are considerably down as well, I think it's a pretty fair assumption his skating is still hindered by the knee injury.

Since Caufield was brought up, his top speed last season (82gp) was 22.76 and he had 3 over 22mph speed bursts and 90 over 20mph.

I'm willing to bet though during 22-23 season more Columbus fans were complaining about how bad Laine's skating is and how he "doesn't move his feet" than Montreal fans were complaing about Caufield's skating last season.

His skating style and size has always made him look "lazy" and "slow" even when statistics just don't agree with it.

Some people can't get over how it looks, compared to how it actually works. Shorter players look so much more "alive" when skating even if they're not getting anywhere any faster. They look like they are trying harder, because they're moving their limbs with more pace. That of course doesn't translate to speed, but optically it's preferred by many because you just look busier.

Obviously he's suffering from playing with a bum knee in a brace right now and is slower than what he's capable of, I'd imagine that would limit any players mobility.

Here's visual of his acceleration in his last Jets game, and you can watch Gaudreau and Monahan looking like they are trying much harder than Laine but keep losing ground.

 
Last edited:
Looking at the numbers and what the person claimed, they weren't far off. Laine's top speed is similar to Caufields. As pointed out by those stats.

Caufield has way more bursts over 20mph and that's not what the argument was about at all (also has 30 more games)
Not only every metric show that Caufield is faster, their first step and explosiveness aren't even close and this is what make Laine look like a old cow on the ice
 

Ad

Ad