31 Takes: Patrik Laine's just fine, thanks

A criticism you will occasionally hear about Patrik Laine is that he’s a one-dimensional player.

You look at his career numbers — 99-57-156 in 177 games, all well before he turns 21 in mid-April — and you say, “Well maybe he should pass more.” And you look at his relative possession numbers (albeit on a really good team) and you say, “Well maybe he needs to play a 200-foot game.”

Certainly this season, the need for him to add an extra element to his play was pretty apparent early on. Coming into Saturday’s game against St. Louis, Laine had just six goals and two assists at 5-on-5 this season, a poor showing for a player many were expecting to break out big-time.

Then he scored four at 5-on-5 and five overall, because that’s just a thing that’s in his capability. It was also two games removed from a two-goal performance in Calgary, and three removed from a hat trick game in Vancouver. (And one removed from scoring against Minnesota, too, but who’s counting?)

He, in fact, has three hat tricks in November. And now leads the NHL in goalscoring despite scoring just three in 12 games in October.

It’s not as though he had been bad — he was scoring two goals every three games, on average — but certainly the Jets weren’t pushing play in the right direction when he was on the ice, and the only thing keeping him in the lineup many nights was, again, the fact that he seemed able to score at will.

Certainly you’d like to see guys keep the puck in the attacking zone and certainly you’d like to see them setting up their teammates more. But there isn’t a single skill more valuable than Laine’s one weird trick to drive other NHL teams crazy.

Patrik Laine came into the league at 18 a couple years ago and since that time, he’s fifth in the league in goals at 5-on-5 behind Auston Matthews, Connor McDavid, Jeff Skinner, and Alex Ovechkin. And that was with a painfully, headline-grabbingly slow start to the year. Expand that to all strengths and his goalscoring soars to a tie for first with Ovechkin.

And that, again, is for his ages-18-through-20 seasons. And that age-20 season is only a quarter of the way done.

When you watch Laine, he really does have that Ovechkin-level quality of making you say, “How on earth did he get that open?” Everyone in the other dressing room knows going into the game that Laine’s gonna shoot the puck and he’s better than 50/50 to score against you, which is an incredible thing to say about a player, let alone someone who can’t legally drink in the U.S., in 2018-19.

Look at his five-goal performance on Saturday. His first goal came on an unreal release with a guy in his face. His second was on the power play from the Ovechkin spot. The third was on a 3-on-1. Even the fourth was on a turnover that turned into a scrum at the top of the crease. And all of those you go, “Well, what was anyone supposed to do there?”

But on goal No. 5? He was stationary and didn’t have a guy within 15 feet of him when he received the puck.

Point is, he just has that ability to make a goal out of nothing, or convert on the stuff he should convert on, or find the space to score even on a night when everyone on the ice should be watching him like a hawk. Which is why he’s scored more goals since coming into the league than everyone but the greatest goalscorer in the history of the sport.

It’s worth remembering that this is a guy who, at just 20, is still improving, and will continue to do so for years. So in the meantime, people will continue call him a little bit one-dimensional.

And this summer, Winnipeg will happily pay anything it takes to keep him around. Because his only dimension is being the best goalscorer in the league.

And they probably won’t care if a second dimension ever shows up.

31 Takes

Anaheim Ducks: The entire state of California might be unlivable by then, but the Ducks are now contractually obligated to stay in Anaheim through 2048.

Arizona Coyotes: Slow start to the year for Clayton Keller, I notice. He’s leading the team in scoring but only has 13 points in 21 games, which isn’t good enough.

Boston Bruins: The Bruins keep winning without Chara, Bergeron, McAvoy, etc. It’s pretty impressive. They just need to hold down the fort for another month. No big deal, right????

Buffalo Sabres: Didn’t realize the Sabres had come from behind six times over their nine-game winning streak. I don’t expect that to last. That’s some 2014-15 Flames stuff.

Calgary Flames: James Neal entered Sunday on a nine-game goalless streak. Five years, $5.75-million AAV. Weird how Brad Treliving does this every two or three years without fail.

Carolina Hurricanes: Sounds like these guys are getting ready to move on from Scott Darling one way or another. Not the best contract in the league, that’s for sure.

Chicago: These guys haven’t won a road game in regulation since Oct. 20.

Colorado Avalanche: It’s maybe worth a take at some point, but Mikko Rantanen might be the real deal. As in, he can probably keep this up all year.

Columbus Blue Jackets: Sometimes you’re just gonna lose the second game of a back-to-back even when you put up 39 shots. That’s a schedule loss.

Dallas Stars: I wonder if literally anyone has been able to figure out this team’s Whole Thing yet.

Detroit Red Wings: The Wings have gone to OT or a shootout six times in the last nine games. They’re somehow 5-1 in those games. Local media is losing its mind about how these guys are getting it right or whatever. Cool to see.

Edmonton Oilers: Ken Hitchcock personally requested this Jesse Puljujarvi call-up. We’ll see how all that goes.

Florida Panthers: Just that kinda year, it seems like.

Los Angeles Kings: The fact that Matt Luff (who?) is “playing an integral role” this season probably says a lot more about the Kings than the player.

Minnesota Wild: Not being facetious: What the Wild need is for Dubnyk to go .920 all year. That’s it. They’ll be 1000 percent fine if it happens.

Montreal Canadiens: Don’t look now, but they’ve lost four in a row and five of the last seven. The last time they won by multiple goals (excepting empty-netters) was Oct. 27. That was 14 games ago. They’re 5-6-3 since then. This team isn’t good. Sorry!

Nashville Predators: Pekka Rinne’s save percentage this year is .944 in 14 appearances. Still not sure about the new contract but you take that.

New Jersey Devils: Why have the Devils struggled on the road? Probably because they’re not that good. Just something I’m kicking around.

New York Islanders: Think I agree with this. Let these guys keep winning as long as they can, but sell off assets the second they lose three in a row. No use giving up futures to add to this group.

New York Rangers: To give up nine goals in two games against division rivals? That’s bad.

Ottawa Senators: Melnyk is the best, dude. He’s so cool.

Philadelphia Flyers: This is a get-a-coach-fired kind of game. Maybe the GM too but probably not.

Pittsburgh Penguins: Jake Guentzel had the third-most-interesting hat trick in the league on Saturday. Pretty funny.

San Jose Sharks: These guys should hire Joel Quenneville.

St. Louis Blues: Speaking of one-dimensional players in the St. Louis/Winnipeg game Saturday night, Joel Edmundson’s one dimension is taking dumb penalties.

Tampa Bay Lightning: The Lightning are behind the Sabres in the standings. Very normal stuff we all predicted.

Toronto Maple Leafs: The fact that the Leafs have so much name-brand talent and then some guy named Andreas Johnsson can just score a hat trick in the first period? That’s probably not fair.

Vancouver Canucks: I know there have been other biting incidents in the NHL in the past decade but the Canucks have two of them now, and you gotta think that leads the league. At least tied. At least.

Vegas Golden Knights: They haven’t allowed a goal in two games. Uh oh.

Washington Capitals: I love when teams win a bunch of games despite allowing the first goal and then go “Oh actually we’re good at coming back from down a goal now.” Probably you aren’t! Stop allowing the first goal at all!

Winnipeg Jets: ELEVEN GOALS IN A WEEK.

Gold Star Award

Yeah Patrik Laine had a good night, but the guy who won $1 million because Laine had a good night definitely had a better night.

Minus of the Weekend

Just a day after getting a shutout, Calvin Pickard got yanked after 12 minutes because he gave up four goals on six shots to the Leafs. Cool.

Play of the Weekend

This freakin’ Crosby pass. Come on, man.

Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Week

User “ConnorMcMullet” wants to make both teams worse.

Ay, una candelabra precariosa!

Ryan Lambert is a Yahoo! Sports hockey columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)