18-Year-Old Patrik Laine Scored His 2nd Career Hat Trick And Currently Leads The NHL In Goals With 11
18 years old. 14 career NHL games. 11 goals. 2 hat tricks. This son of a bitch right here. I guess there really is hope for future generations.
Patrik Laine is scoring ~.79 goals per game. That means it will only take him 1,131 games to eclipse Wayne Gretzky’s 894 goals. Divide that by 82 and you’re looking at around February of his 14th season in the NHL. To steal a quick segment from PMT, I think that you have to put Wayne Gretzky on the hot seat at this point. Once 2030 rolls around, there’s going to be a new king of the castle. And that castle is Finnish. And while that King has a jacked up face, he has one of the most beautiful shot releases we’ve ever seen. The kid is 18-years-old but I don’t think there’s a more dangerous wrist shot in the league than Laine’s. I’ve said this before but what makes Stamkos and Ovechkin so deadly on the powerplay is other player’s abilities to get them the puck in space so they can blast a one-timer right through the goalie’s soul. Laine doesn’t even need anybody else around him. He creates it all himself which should terrifying. Now that wasn’t the case on any of his goals from last night (big ups to Mark Scheifele who now leads the league in points with 18 after 2 goals and 2 assists last night). But still. It took Patrik Laine a little over a month in the NHL to become one of the premier goal scorers in the league. Next decade should be fun.
Sidenote: While we’re on the subject of the Winnipeg Jets, Jacob Trouba finally ended his hold out earlier this week and signed for 2 years at $3 million AAV earlier this week. He demanded to be traded in the summer. Refused to sign an extension while the Jets refused to give in. So he finally decided that playing as a left side defenseman is better than not playing at all and signed a bridge deal with the team. We’ve already seen how not complying with a young kid’s trade request worked out for the Tampa Bay Lightning with Jonathan Drouin, and I think everybody can agree that the Jets made the right move here. Tough break for the kid but now he’s got 2 years to prove to other teams that he’s worth the type of money and position that he wants.