32 Teams, 32 Players: Patrik Laine

We continue to look ahead to the 2024-25 NHL season by taking a look at Montreal Canadiens forward Patrik Laine.

Now that the 2024-25 NHL season has arrived (seriously, it starts today with a game in Europe) we are going to highlight one player on each team that stands out for the season. What kind of player? Well, a player that could make a difference, be an X-factor, be on the verge of a breakout, or just simply be a player under the microscope and needing to have a big season.

Basically — which player do I think is the most fascinating on each team.

We are not going in any particularly order and continue today with Patrik Laine of the Montreal Canadiens.

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The Montreal Canadiens trade for Patrik Laine might have been one of my favorite moves of the offseason from any team.

It is one that a lot of other teams should have been trying to make.

I get the risks with Laine. He is expensive at $8.7 million per season for this season and next season. His play regressed in Columbus (though a lot of that was out of his control with injuries and some personal struggles) and he can be a very one-dimensional player that doesn’t always carry play away from the puck. He is not a perfect player.

But just because somebody is not a perfect player does not mean they are not a good player. Or a useful player. And Laine strikes me as the type of player that if put in the right role — a complementary role where he can focus on scoring goals, which is what he does best — and let him focus on that he can still be somebody makes a big impact.

Maybe he’s not the guy you build the franchise around. But he might still be somebody that ends up being a core brick in the foundation.

Beyond that, even when he had some “down” years in Columbus he was still scoring at a 32-goal pace! That’s a down year for him offensively. Scoring 30 goals is still a big deal, and he is still perfectly capable of getting back closer to the 35-or 40-goal ability he showed earlier in his career.

He is also still only 26 years old even though it seems like he has been in the league forever.

So when the Canadiens had a chance to get him AND a second-round draft pick for an okay defenseman (Jordan Harris) it seemed like it should have been a pretty easy call.

They made it, and now they have a potential impact player that might be able to push their rebuild a little bit further this season.

They just have to wait a little bit to see it happen.

Let’s talk about it.