There Was Nothing Wrong With Patrik Laine's Comments
Patrik Laine's declaration on Tuesday in Montreal got a lot of people talking, but there was nothing wrong with his comments.
On Tuesday, TVA Sports' Anthony Martineau asked Patrik Laine if he believed he could use the 4 Nations Face-Off to get a new rhythm going and he answered:
To be able to get on the ice a little more definitely helps. It's been kind of limited the past couple of weeks. With the guys I'm playing here, I'm hopefully gonna see more ice time. That's gonna help obviously. It's hard to get going when you're not been able to perform.
I think it'll be a good turning point just to play good here & gain confidence & keep it going with the Canadiens for the rest of the year.
Some medias have spun this as Laine throwing coach Martin St-Louis and having a dig at Kirby Dach and Alex Newhook, but I don't believe this is what's going on there. It's him acknowledging the fact he's not been performing of late and saying he hopes to get a fresh dose of confidence playing alongside Sebastian Aho (who he lit up the World Junior Championship) and Roope Hintz (who's wedding he attended last Summer).
He's not saying teammates Dach and Newhook are bad, he's saying that Aho and Hintz are good players. Nobody can argue that Dach is a superior player than Aho or Hintz and the same is true for Newhook. Laine is about to enter a tournament in which he's going to play with all-star players.
He's hoping that playing with those players will help him bounce back and really, that's what the Canadiens hope as well and it's perfectly logical. I wrote about that very topic a couple of days ago and I strongly believe this is what the fans hope as well.
Martineau didn't put the question to Laine hoping he would throw his coach and teammates under the bus, he asked because he, and everyone else, wanted to get his thoughts on the situation.
On Thursday night, Finland will kick off his tournament at 8:00 PM by taking on Team USA and every Canadiens fan in attendance will hope their player has a good outing, something to build on for the rest of the season, just like he said.
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