Nobody is going to complain about Patrik Laine’s goal scoring. He has 20 goals in 47 games and his shooting percentage is very high. He does have stretches of games without goals and he is scoring some even strength goals too. What he isn’t doing is shooting the puck a lot. 

To show how few shots he’s taking you can go back to 2022-23 when he was still with the Columbus Blue Jackets. He had 22 goals in 55 games so he will exceed that. But here’s the thing, Laine took 359 shots compared to the 198 he’s currently taken. That’s a precipitous drop and presumably if he shoots more, he will score more. 

In 2022-23, Laine played more minutes. He was averaging 19:07 a game. This season, he’s only averaging 14:29, also the lowest in his career. I don’t think his ice time will change. And that’s ok, they are maximizing his time on the ice but they aren’t getting the most out of him in my estimation.

On April 1st against Florida, he had three shots on net. For the next three games, he only got one shot on goal per game. I can’t explain why he isn’t shooting more but as games get more important it would be good if he could average three on net per game. I think that’s possible and I think that could really help the team down while it’s in the stretch drive of their season and hoping to get into the postseason.