A good nickname for Patrik Laine would be The Big Easy.
I was thinking that while watching Laine score three goals — all on the power play and all on one-timers — in the Canadiens’ 6-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres Tuesday night at the Bell Centre.
Laine’s windup for his one-timer slapshot looks so smooth, easy and effortless and yet the puck comes off his stick like a rocket. In his first seven games with the Canadiens since recovering from a pre-season knee injury, Laine has six goals — all on the power play and all on rocket shots.
Laine’s slapshot reminds me of Ernie Els’s golf swing, which is how the 6-foot-3, 210-pound South African earned his nickname The Big Easy on the PGA Tour.
In the Canadiens’ dressing room after Tuesday’s game, I asked Laine if he was a golfer and/or a golf fan. He answered: “Yes and yes.”
I then told Laine that he reminds me of Els when he shoots the puck by making it look so easy.
“I don’t know if that’s a compliment, to be honest,” the 6-foot-4, 208-pound winger responded.
“It’s not perfect, but it’s been working so far throughout my life,” Laine added. “I don’t feel like I need to really make any adjustments with that. Obviously, you can get better at it or try to work on it every day, just like everything else. It’s kind of always been like that.”
When I told Laine I meant the comparison to Els as a compliment, he replied: “All right … well then I’ll take it.”
There’s no doubt Laine has put in thousands of hours perfecting his shot. He never had a shooting coach as a kid growing up in Finland, but watched lots of YouTube videos of the Washington Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin scoring goals and fired “millions of shots” both on and off the ice.
Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis said that Laine’s shot is not a gift a player is born with. Rather, a player is born with certain athletic talents, but a lot of work goes into having a shot like Laine’s as well as understanding the mechanics of it.
“For me, a one-timer, it’s physics,” St. Louis said. “A lot of physics that come into play.”
St. Louis said Laine reminds him of Ovechkin and Steven Stamkos (St. Louis’s old teammate with the Tampa Bay Lightning) with his right-hand shot and an ability to score on the power play from inside the left faceoff circle.
“Everybody knows it’s coming, but it still somehow finds a way in the net,” St. Louis said.
The way Laine shoots the puck isn’t as easy as he makes it look.
The Big Easy nickname would also suit the way Laine handles himself on and off the ice. Everything he does on the ice looks effortless and off the ice he’s impressively calm, cool and collected when doing interviews. As he was speaking with the media after Tuesday’s game, teammate Jake Evans brought him a plate with three Bell Centre hot dogs to celebrate his hat trick.
“I used to have those up in the press box,” Laine said about the games he watched at the Bell Centre while recovering from his knee injury.
Laine’s stats through his first seven games with the Canadiens are mind-boggling. Only three teammates have scored more goals than him this season: Cole Caufield (17), Nick Suzuki (11) and Brendan Gallagher (8) despite the fact Laine missed 24 games. Through Tuesday’s games, only 11 players in the NHL had scored more power-play goals than Laine, including Caufield, who is one ahead of him with seven.
Laine has scored his six goals on 25 shots for a shooting percentage of 24 per cent.
Rookie defenceman Lane Hutson has assisted on five of Laine’s six goals. Hutson plays some golf and smiled when I compared Laine’s shot to Els’s golf swing.
“I think that’s what’s so hard about a penalty-killer trying to block it is his technique is pretty special,” Hutson said about Laine. “He’s not trying to bomb it, but he just bombs it anyways. He’s got a great shot and it’s just so fun to watch and so fun to get him the puck.”
Hutson added that Laine doesn’t need to get a perfect pass to score.
“His hit zone is wherever it needs to be for him, I guess,” Hutson said. “He’s really good at adjusting and the speed of the pass doesn’t matter. I sent him a hard pass a couple of games ago and he was able to hit it and it was still a bomb. He’s a special player, for sure.”
Defenceman Mike Matheson is also a golfer and he also smiled at the comparison between Laine and Els.
“It’s so fluid,” Matheson said about Laine’s shot. “It’s just effortless.”
Matheson, who also has a big shot, added that he can learn from watching Laine.
“Oh, definitely,” Matheson said. “His timing is perfect. Really impressive and fun to watch.
“Just get him the puck, that’s for sure.”
Good idea.