Talented Laine the new Finnish Flash
Winnipeg fans captivated by one of the NHL’s most exciting rookies since Teemu Selanne
It’s a Tuesday night but still we will muse about the Canucks’ 4-1 win over the Jets. Patrik Laine is one of the most exciting rookies to break into the NHL in the last decade, but he’s hardly the first Finn to capture the Winnipeg market.
Yes, those who saw him will never forget Hannu Jarvenpaa.
Others, however, might recall that Teemu Selanne set an NHL record that will never be broken when he scored 76 goals with the Jets in his first NHL season.
The comparison with Laine is obvious, but while there are similarities — both are sublime offensive talents, both ooze confidence and charisma — this is really an apples-and-oranges comparison.
The NHL of 1992-93, for starters, was a different place. Selanne’s 76 goals was an amazing feat.
What’s more amazing is, it didn’t lead the NHL; Alex Mogilny scored 76 in Buffalo.
That year, there were 15 50-goal scorers and 21 100-point men in the NHL.
Stylistically, they’re also different. Selanne was a Lamborghini.
Fast, powerful and nimble, he was good for a couple of breakaways a game and started scoring at a surreal pace when he found a move to his backhand early in the season.
Laine isn’t as flashy but, in a confined, airless league, he’s lethal. Ovechkin-like in his ability to shoot the puck and score from distance, he already has one of the best one-timers in the game and is on pace for 43 goals, the highest rookie total since, ta da, Ovechkin’s 52 in 200506.
Tuesday night, Laine’s game was a microcosm of his team’s. He started fast, drawing a penalty in the first minute and recording a couple of shots on net — including a wrister that knocked off Jacob Markstrom’s mask — before disappearing in the second period He’ll be back on Thursday night. We’ll be watching.
As for the game itself, well, it had a familiar look. The Jets owned the first period, outshooting the Canucks 13-7. They opened the scoring when Blake Wheeler blew around Alex Biega. It was the 25th time in 33 games Willie Desjardins’ team has surrendered the first goal, which is usually a recipe for disaster.
But these Canucks defy the quick and easy characterization.
Somehow, someway they caught a spark early in the second, rattled off seven straight shots on Connor Hellebuyck and tied the game on Jannik Hansen’s goal.
A Degas it wasn’t. When is it ever for this team? The power play remains an eyesore. They look overmatched for long stretches. But they battled their way back and took control of a game when they looked deader than Sonny Corleone.
Hansen — and tell me again why he isn’t on the power play — was the scoring star, but the real hero on this night was Luca Sbisa. The dude finished with a team-high 25:05 of ice time, helped shut down the Laine, Nik Ehlers, Mark Schiefele line and played with an edge. Just another night at the office for old No. 5.
On Monday night, Canucks president Trevor Linden did some musing of his own on head coach Willie Desjardins.
Linden said that, except for three or four times this season, he’s never left the building believing the team hadn’t played hard.
Don’t know what the future holds for Desjardins but this team does play for him.
In 2014, the Canucks took Jake Virtanen with the sixth pick of the draft and the Jets followed three picks later with Nik Ehlers. The two players will forever be linked by Canucks fans, and while Ehlers didn’t have a big night on Tuesday, his talent is self-evident. On the season, Ehlers has 26 points. That would lead the Canucks in scoring.
The book is hardly closed on these two players but the early returns aren’t great for the Canucks. Ehlers is the type of young, dynamic forward this organization needs, a building block for the future, a potential star. Virtanen is trying to find himself in Utica.
Hate to beat this thing to death, but when you’re trying to rebuild and trying to sell hope for the future, you can’t afford to make a mistake on a lottery pick. Whether he’s in Vancouver or Utica, Virtanen remains a major story for this organization.