From red-hot to ice-cold: Laine trying not to think about scoring drought

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This article was published 09/01/2019 (2432 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Fourteen months ago, Patrik Laine was going through a crisis of confidence and wasn’t afraid to admit it.

“Feels like hockey is really hard right now,” the 20-year-old Jets winger told reporters at the time. “It doesn’t matter if it’s offensively or defensively. Obviously, I don’t have a lot of confidence.”

On Wednesday, in the midst of a stretch of one goal in 10 games and having scored only three times in 18 games since Dec. 1, the Finnish phenom was asked if he had a similar feeling about state of his current game.

“I would probably say the same things,” said Laine, who still has a team-leading 24 goals in three 42 games after piling up an astonishing 18 goals in a 12-game period in November.

“There’s been a big stretch where I haven’t scored, and so it’s kinda my specialty and it’s always frustrating when you’re not doing the right things.

“There’s still a lot of things you can do well for the team and that’s kinda my focus now, try to rather do those things and not worry about the goals because eventually they’ll come when you work hard and do small things right.”

Laine has been keen to push himself and to that end, he joined five teammates for Wednesday’s optional skate at Bell MTS Place before the team departed for Thursday’s road game in St. Paul against the Minnesota Wild.

“I like to skate, that’s the main thing,” said Laine. “I wanna keep my touch. I feel I play better when I skate more so that’s why. I don’t like to sit in a room and wait for the plane to take off. I’d rather skate and have fun on the ice.

Laine insisted he hasn’t been consumed by his inability to score.

“Obviously it’s in the back of your head always when you’re not scoring and you’re struggling here, but I would not say ‘take it home,'” he said. “At home, I’m not worrying about hockey, just trying to think about something else. Not take these things that happen here at the rink home.”

With left-winger Nikolaj Ehlers out of the lineup with an upper-body injury for at least another three weeks, head coach Paul Maurice has been testing the right-shooting Laine on the left side with centre Bryan Little and right-winger Jack Roslovic, who has been promoted to the No. 2 unit.

Laine is up for the change.

“I think it’s a lot of fun,” said Laine. “I haven’t played on the left side, just a few games in the last couple years, so I’m still getting used to it, but I feel more comfortable on that side. There’s still a lot of things I need to work on, especially playing left side in the NHL is different that I’m used to.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14