Montreal Canadiens sniper Patrik Laine will take part in the 4 Nations Face-Off with Finland and the Habs' brass must be hoping the best-on-best tournament helps him find his game.
Montreal Canadiens' left winger Patrik Laine has been held off the scoresheet for the last eight games and has seen a steady decrease in his ice time. From 20:41 on Jan. 19 it has dwindled to just 11:13 yesterday, making him the second less used skater behind rookie Owen Beck.
When he took his first strides on the ice with the Canadiens, he was oozing confidence and was a scoring machine on the power play, putting up eight goals in his first 10 games. A stark contrast with the Laine we saw on Sunday in the game against the Tampa Bay Lightning, his timing was off and when he was managing to use his patented one-timer, his shots were far from convincing.
Back in 2016, when he played for Finland in the World Junior Championship with Sebastian Aho the pair had a fantastic tournament. Laine got 13 points in just seven games while Aho got one more point as the Finns won the tournament held on home soil in Helsinki.
It will be interesting to see what the Finnish lines look like for the tournament. Considering his poor form of late, it would be surprising to see the Canadiens' sniper find his way to one of the top lines, but a spot on the power play remains a possibility. We've seen just how efficient Laine can be in that role and he's done it before with other teams, it's part of the reason why Finland's GM Jere Lehtinen picked him for the tournament.
Deployment is up to coach Antti Pennanen, who was an assistant coach when Laine and Aho lead Finland to the World Junior Championship title in 2016. Finland will play its first game on Thursday night, taking on Team USA and it wouldn't be surprising to see the Bell Centre crowd get behind the Finns. They have two Habs players in Laine and Joel Armia and given the USA's decision not to use Cole Caufield and what President Trump has been up to, they're not winning over fans in Montreal.
A solid tournament from Laine could be just what he needs to find his confidence back and come back to his December form when the Canadiens play their next game in Ottawa on Feb. 22.
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