Yesterday (June 12) on Insider Trading, TSN’s Pierre LeBrun revealed Patrik Laine wants a fresh beginning and that the Columbus Blue Jackets will do their best to accommodate him. While he also wanted a trade from the Winnipeg Jets back in 2021, this is not the same situation at all. Would it make sense for the Toronto Maple Leafs to chase the big Finnish winger?
Laine’s NHL Career So Far
When the Maple Leafs picked Auston Matthews first overall at the 2016 Draft, the Jets picked Laine. Both were raved about in their scouting reports and while Winnipeg might have liked the first pick, the 6-foot-5, 215-pound Laine was no consolation prize. Both players started their NHL career the very next season and while Matthews put up 69 points in a full 82-game campaign, Laine racked up 64 points in 73 games.
It was a promising start for the young Finn and the next season saw him play 82 games and set his career-high in points at 70. From then on though, things started to go downhill. His production dropped by 20 points the next season but went back up in 2019-20. Then, at the start of the 2020-21 season, after just one game, Laine was traded to Columbus.
What wasn’t known at the time was what motivated the winger’s request, but down the line, reports started to surface about a divide between himself and the Jets’ veterans Blake Wheeler and Mark Schiefele. After the trade, Wheeler told the media he regretted the way things had gone down and that perhaps he could have communicated better with his young teammate rather than letting his frustration boil over. At the start of the 2022-23 season, Winnipeg stripped Wheeler of his captaincy.
Meanwhile, in Columbus, Laine’s first season was cut short by injuries, and he ended his first year with the Blue Jackets with only 21 points on the board in 45 games. After a second season in which he produced a point-per-game, the Blue Jackets inked him to a new four-year deal worth $34.8 million with an $8.7 million cap hit. The relationship between Laine and head coach John Tortorella was yet another issue bringing him down.
Unfortunately for Laine, his next two campaigns weren’t smooth sailing either. He was limited to 55 games in the 2022-23 season and only featured in 18 games this season after entering the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program. He entered the program in January 2024, a month and a half after breaking his collarbone in a match against the Maple Leafs.
We haven’t heard much from Laine since then, aside from when members of a podcast made a completely disrespectful joke about his state of mind and the Finn took to social media to express his disappointment while his agent also put out a statement on the matter.
Laine’s Need for a New Beginning Is Understandable
After four years in Ohio plagued with injuries, disappointment, and mental health issues, it’s understandable that a player would aim to start afresh somewhere and leave the bad memories behind.
While hockey is a business, it remains a sport played by human beings who have needs, aspirations, and feelings. If Laine’s state of mind was bad enough to make him seek help in a sport that all too often requires its athletes to be tough guys, it was a serious matter and one that should be treated accordingly.
With two years left on his contract, Laine could have tried to grin and bear it and leave at the end of the 2025-26 season since he will be an unrestricted free agent then, but this would have been a disaster for the Blue Jackets. Columbus traded Pierre-Luc Dubois to land Laine and obtaining zero return on that investment would be unacceptable.
Laine and his agent showed their hand and the team can now try and find a new landing spot for him. Of course, his value is not what it once was and Columbus will not be negotiating from a position of strength, but they have all the relevant information necessary to accommodate the player.
Would Laine Be a Fit in Toronto?
Whenever a player selected second-overall and proven he can be a point-per-game player in the NHL becomes available, general managers are drawn like moths to a flame, and understandingly so. Laine is an offensive dynamo and once he comes out of the Player Assistance Program, there’s no reason to believe he won’t return to being an efficient top-six player. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’d be a good fit in Toronto’s organization, though.
What the Maple Leafs lack right now is not pure talent. They have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to that department, but they need grit and sandpaper; players who aren’t scared to do the dirty work to be able to feed their top-scoring guys. This is by no means a description of what Laine is.
For those who believe a Laine for Mitch Marner deal would make sense, I’ll only state that if you a going to trade a dollar for an older dollar, you might as well keep the one you have. Besides, Marner should be used to address the issues plaguing the team, not to make a move that at best will see the Maple Leafs remain as good as they are but without improving.
Related: Maple Leafs in a Bad Spot With Level of Control Marner Has
Using Marner to get grit up front, stability on defence or a real number-one goaltender could be acceptable alternatives, but using him in a pointless deal would be a capital mistake by Brad Treliving. When you’re shopping for something, you should be buying what you need and not whatever is the newest item in stock.
Treliving should leave the craze of trading and acquiring anything or anyone made available to the Vegas Golden Knights. They are the ones who are always ready to spend left, right, and center without so much as a plan. Remember when they traded for Max Pacioretty and eventually had to give him away for free because of salary cap issues? That’s not sensible planning at all.
