Patrik Laine Returning to Star Status with Canadiens

The Montreal Canadiens made one of the biggest moves of the offseason when they acquired Patrik Laine from the Columbus Blue Jackets. A preseason injury disrupted Laine’s debut with the Canadiens, but in four games this season, he has three goals and an assist for four total points.
Laine hasn’t been with the Canadiens for an extended period of time yet, but he’s already showing what made him a superstar talent in the early days of his career with the Winnipeg Jets. Before making his way to the Blue Jackets, Laine was the second-overall pick in 2015 and right away made noise as an elite goal scorer.
In each of his first three seasons, Laine scored 30 or more goals, totaling 110 in 237 games played. He has 207 over his 484-game career, but that number is sure to take a huge jump in Montreal.
All three of Laine’s goals with the Canadiens have been power play goals and Montreal may quickly see one of the fiercest power play units in the NHL. Backed by Laine’s return to stardom, the Canadiens have one of the most well-rounded power play groups in the league.
“This power play for the Montreal Canadiens has a lot of key ingredients for something that can be really good for a long time,” Frank Corrado said on TSN. “Now that Lane Hutson is playing the first power play unit up top, that is an elite passer. There’s going to be two elite goal scorers on this unit, with Patrik Laine and Cole Caufield.”
Corrado went on to mention that Juraj Slafkovsky is a huge body to have in the net front and captain Nick Suzuki has the ability to do just about anything offensively.
“There’s a lot of nice elements that can lead to Patrik Laine having a lot of power play success here,” Corrado said. “You pair that up with a good frame of mind, where he has found some purpose in his game, the ingredients are there for Patrik Laine to regain his star status.”
The Canadiens are 3-1-0 with Laine in their lineup and that should only get better as Laine continues his pace and finds what made him so dominant I Winnipeg.