The shine has come off Patrik Laine.
And that’s putting it politely. You don’t have to search far online or in the bars and cafés where Habs fans gather in Montreal to find folks who’ll sum up the Laine situation in a lot less polite terms.
The honeymoon is over for the Finnish sniper to the point that I’ve been joking in recent days that the Habs’ Finnish sniper is in fact a fellow named Joel Armia. Army, as his teammates call him, scored two goals on the Canadiens’ west coast road trip, including the winner against the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday.
Laine, meanwhile, hasn’t scored in his last eight games and has only four goals in the 13 games he’s played in 2025. This is the same guy who electrified fans by scoring eight goals in his first nine games after he made his debut with the Canadiens Dec. 3, following his return from a knee injury incurred during the exhibition season.
When he was on a heater, he scored all of his goals on the power play and almost all from the exact same spot, blasting Ovechkin-like Howitzers from the left face-off circle. The goalies always knew they were coming, but seemed powerless to stop the puck from blasting, top shelf, into the back of the net.
The problem is that now that he’s stopped scoring, he doesn’t seem, at least for the moment, much good at doing anything else. From Day 1, he hasn’t been a strong contributor at five-on-five and lately he has also been ineffective on the power play.
Worse yet, he often looks lazy on the ice, something that is clearly driving head coach Martin St. Louis up the wall. MSL has demoted him to the third line alongside Armia and Jake Evans and on Sunday against Anaheim, the coach benched him in the third period. Most think the straw that broke the coach’s back was the second Ducks goal, when Laine completely stopped skating when he entered the Canadiens zone, standing watch as Frank Vatrano scored. On Wednesday against the Los Angeles Kings, Laine was on the ice less than any other forward, playing just over 11 minutes.
Laine’s comments to reporters after the Anaheim game also didn’t inspire much confidence that he’s about to turn things around anytime soon.
“I’ve learned to not worry about that stuff too much,” Laine said. “It’s just one game in a long season… obviously confidence is not super high.”
To not worry about being benched seems like the wrong response. It has been many games, not one, and the fact he isn’t feeling confident just isn’t good.
Some say it’s the lingering effects of the injury and that’s possible. Only he knows. Though I’m reluctant to use post-injury recovery as an excuse. The same argument was made for Kirby Dach’s loisy start to the season and now it appears to many that his issues are hockey-IQ related rather than having anything to do with his injury (and he’s looking a bit better in recent games).
Others argue that Laine is an elite player, but streaky. Maybe. But the numbers don’t lie. He hasn’t been a truly elite point-getter since his phenomenal first two seasons in Winnipeg and that was ages ago.
Former NHL coach Bob Hartley said on BPM Sports this week that if you put Laine on waivers no team would pick him up and I think he’s right. It’s not even the money, though a cap hit of $8.7 million is pretty steep. It’s just that if he is playing like this, he unbalances the entire forward group. Dach and Alex Newhook seemed to come to life when Laine was dropped from their line and he’s not a good fit on a defensive checking line, which is where he’s been housed these last few days.
At McLean’s Pub Wednesday before the Habs-Kings game, I chatted with Jets fan Krystal Boyce-Gaudreau, a former Winnipegger who was having dinner with her husband and three adult sons. She is, ummm, not a Laine fan. She said she is not in the least surprised by the trajectory of Laine’s career in Montreal.
“He did the exact same thing with the Winnipeg Jets,” Boyce-Gaudreau said. “He came out on fire, was the next greatest thing for the Winnipeg Jets and then lost all fuel in his game and seemed like he was more pouting on the bench than contributing to the team.”
Added her son Keanan Boyce-Gaudreau: “He’s not responsible anywhere on the ice. He plays how people play in beer league where you only try when you have the puck. It’s almost like he’s trying to be Ovie but he just doesn’t have it.”
Steve Daigle, also at McLean’s, said “he’s like a one-trick pony. He’s very good at that shot from the face-off circle on the power play. But he doesn’t do much other than that.”
Ryan Alexander, a Pittsburgh Penguins fan from Newfoundland, said “he’s not as good as he was expected to be. He’s the kind of player who heats up and then cools off longer than he heats up.”