The NHL’s Most CONFUSING Superstar
There’s something about Patrik Laine that defies logic. How can a player with one of the most terrifying shots in hockey — a man once hyped as the next Ovechkin — end up drifting through games, invisible for entire stretches?
He’s too gifted to be written off, yet too inconsistent to be trusted. One night he looks like a franchise cornerstone; the next, like a passenger. A power-play assassin who vanishes at five-on-five. A superstar whose talent never quite translates into results.
So today, we’re diving deep into the riddle of Patrik Laine — how a sniper so deadly became one of the NHL’s most confusing players. We’ll trace his early rise, his fall from grace, his struggles in Columbus, the new chapter in Montreal, and the looming question: What does his future look like if nothing changes?
Stick around — because the final verdict might completely change how you see him.
13 Comments
Line AY
Ridiculous for St. Louis to not put him in 1st pp unit.
Idk why it’s confusing, he’s NOT a superstar.
Not a superstar lmao, ‘absolute stud’ sure, but ‘superstar’ no.
I'm getting fed up with how difficult it is to put Laine somewhere in the line up.
He's making himself very expendable. He can't do nothing 5 on 5. He's an absolute unicorn unfortunately.
He is very slow. Making effort seems to be so hard for him, see impossible.
Sad to see so much talent going to waste. No engagement, No desire.
We'll have 8.7M$ to spare next year because he doesn't fit in MTL Culture.
Laine will get traded to a team in the McKenna hunt with a 2 year contract and after that he will retire from hockey. Hard to ever see him playing on a Stanley cup contender team with just glaring deficits to his game that he has been unable to tend to during past close to 10 seasons.
Funny thing is we were drooling over Suzuki when he was -20/60 point player.
When laine did that as a winger and was younger, he got called lazy.
Imagine that dude with McDavid, MacKinnon, or Crosby setting him up. Yeesh
patrick lie-neigh
Laine is now doing that what they want. Shutting down opponents scoring in two first games and playing record minutes on 5on5 compared to last season. Now let him play 2-3 min/g pp instead of 30sec-1min and he will be scoring more. I don't know why they let PP1 wasting so many minutes. Give Laine and Demidov equal minutes than PP1.
His biggest weakness to me is his skating. He’s just so big that he seems quite uncoordinated and can’t drive the play. I hope he finds some motivation and improves the weak parts of his game as his shot is too good to bury on the fourth line.
Anyone can say whatever about anything. Goals are only thing that matter, have to have more goals than opponent. Very simple, game can evolve and anyone can do whatever they do, feelings and power are irrelevant. Only thing that ever will win is scoring goals, hard to understand how that fest cant be just made to work like 1 per game.
He needs set up guy like Ovi had Backström