Monday night’s game in Columbus did not go the way the Canadiens or Patrik Laine hoped it would.
It was Laine’s first game back in Columbus since the Blue Jackets traded him to the Canadiens in August, along with a second-round pick at the 2026 NHL Draft, in exchange for defenceman Jordan Harris.
Not only did the Canadiens lose 5-4 to Columbus — with Harris scoring his first goal as a Blue Jacket — Laine suffered an upper-body injury in the first period that knocked him out of the game. Laine only played six shifts, logging 6:15 of ice time, without getting a shot on goal. The Canadiens saw their season-best three-game win streak come to an end as their record fell to 14-17-3.
Earlier in the day, Laine upset his former Blue Jackets teammates with his comments to reporters in Columbus about the four seasons he spent there. Laine played only 18 games with the Blue Jackets last season, posting 6-3-9 totals, before suffering a broken left clavicle that required surgery. Laine then entered the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program in January while dealing with mental-health issues. In June, Laine asked Blue Jackets GM Don Waddell, through his agent, to trade him.
The Blue Jackets failed to make the playoffs in each of Laine’s four seasons in Columbus.
“I feel like we were just doing the same thing year after year, you know?” Laine told reporters in Columbus Monday morning about his time with the Blue Jackets. “I was just tired of losing and just giving up when it’s December and we’ll start focusing on next year. It’s like, ‘I’m not going to do that,’ you know?
“That’s just frustrating as a player, when you’re trying to win and some people are not like that and they’re a little too satisfied and a little too comfortable with where they’re at,” Laine added. “So that really wasn’t a fit for me anymore. But here (in Montreal), it doesn’t matter if we’re winning or losing. We’re always trying our best … so, that’s kind of how I felt about it.”
Laine wouldn’t specify whether the problem was with teammates, coaches or the front office with the Blue Jackets.
“I’ll leave that for everybody’s imagination,” he said, “but there were certainly people like that, that were a little too comfortable and fine with losing and just doing the same thing year after year. So I’m going to leave that up for discussion for everybody else.”
Not surprisingly, the Blue Jackets players didn’t like what they heard, and neither did Columbus fans, who booed him each time he touched the puck Monday night. The Blue Jackets delivered some solid checks on Laine, including one by Dmitri Voronkov that knocked Laine on his butt.
After the game, the Blue Jackets’ Zach Werenski was asked by Columbus reporters if he had heard Laine’s comments.
“Yeah,” Werenski said. “It’s unfortunate. I think as guys here and a guy that’s been here, we were nothing but good teammates to him, nothing but good friends to him. For him to bash us like that, I think it’s just unacceptable. I hope he’s all right with whatever he’s dealing with tonight, but he didn’t finish the game. A couple of hits and … yeah, I don’t know what happened, but it’s unfortunate.
“We were nothing but good teammates to him,” Werenski added. “For him to come in here and say all that, that’s bulls–t. Definitely not happy about it and none of us in this room are happy about it. I think that speaks more about him than it does us.”
Werenski added that Laine’s comments gave the Blue Jackets added motivation against the Canadiens.
“Yeah, 100 per cent,” Werenski said. “What’s he thinking saying that? It’s just incredible. I’ve got no more time for that. I don’t wanna talk about Patty anymore. I hope he’s all right. I just thought that was pretty ridiculous, to be honest.”
The Canadiens beat the Blue Jackets in their first two meetings this season — 5-1 at the Bell Centre on Nov. 16 and 4-3 in overtime at Columbus on Nov. 27 — without Laine in the lineup. The two teams don’t meet again this season.
After Monday’s game, Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis said he had no update on Laine’s condition. In nine games with the Canadiens since recovering from a pre-season knee injury, Laine has eight goals — all on the power play.
The Canadiens are on a Christmas break and don’t play again until Saturday in Florida against the Panthers (1 p.m., TSN2, RDS).