For the 19-year-old Winnipeg Jets’ right winger, the rest of the the hockey audience could be in for a very rude awakening over the next three months, especially once the Jets get national TV exposure during the upcoming Stanley Cup playoffs.
On Thursday night, Laine tied Sidney Crosby for fith-most goals in NHL history (75) by a player before reaching the age of 20. Laine also has 51 assists, and has only accrued 48 total penalty minutes in just shy of two full seasons with the Jets.
The second overall pick in the 2016 Draft, Laine now finds himself on the same line as 21-year-old Nikolaj Ehlers, and recently-acquired Paul Stastny. Laine is only making $832,000 this season. Compare that to Ehlers signing a 7-year, $42 million extension that begins next season, and Stastny still owed $7.25 million for the last year of his expiring deal between the Jets and St. Louis Blues this season. The ideal that Laine is still playing under a two-way contract is laughable, considering the payday he is up to receive after next season.
Laine (39) is right at the heels of Alex Ovechkin (40) for the league lead in goals, and Jets’ captain Blake Wheeler is in the league’s top 10 in scoring (his 57 assists are tied for the top mark in the NHL entering tonight with Philadelphia’s Jakub Voracek).
Goaltender Connor Hellebuyck has 34 wins on the year, which has already matched the Jets/Atlanta Thrashers mark, with still more than a month left in the regular season. His six shutouts are one off the league lead.
Are you starting to see a pattern with just how good the Jets are this season?
Winnipeg’s biggest problem is that the defending Western Conference Champion Nashville Predators have the league’s current longest win streak, at nine straight. The Predators slingshot past the Vegas Golden Knights for the best record in the West, and are a single point behind the Tampa Bay Lightning for tops in the league. The Jets’ record since their relocation from Atlanta in 2011 was 99 points, set in 2014-15. Sitting currently with 89, that mark should fall within the next two weeks.
The Thrashers/Jets franchise is a career 0-8 in the NHL playoffs, having been swept in 2007 by the New York Rangers, and Anaheim in 2015. For the Jets to extend that mark to 0-12, someone is going to have to find a way to contain Laine, or hope Hellebuyck plays his way out of being a Vezina Trophy finalist (with Nashville’s Pekka Rinne and Tampa’s Andrei Vasilevsky likely joining him in the running).
Back to Laine, who doesn’t turn 20 until 19 April. There’s still plenty of time for the Finnish sensation to move up even higher on the earlier list mentioned, but more importantly, to get in prime form in time for the postseason. Laine has 10 goals in his last six games, and 20 points (14G, 6A) during his current 10-game points streak.
The Jets play nine of their final 15 games against Western Conference teams, but the next three are on the road against teams currently with comfortable playoff positions (Philadelphia, Washington, and Nashville). The Jets have three of those games against the Chicago Blackhawks, who any other year would have been make-or-break. We know Chicago’s run at the top appears to be all but over, as is evident by their last-place standing in the Central Division.
I don’t think the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers will mind the Jets cutting into their fanbase with a deep Stanley Cup run this year. It sure implies 0-8 is a forgotten memory.
-JC24