We had a short Laine interview here:
http://www.iltalehti.fi/jaakiekko/2016090522266630_jk.shtml
I'll summarize this interview in English.
Reporter: "How much do you want to show players like Mark Scheifele and Jacob Troube(Your future teammates) what you've got and what you are able to do?"
Laine: "It's of course going to be good to show the guys that I've been training during the summer and can play with them this year. But of course, I don't want to take all their confidence away when the entire season is still ahead so let's see what the situation is like afterwards.
Reporter: "The line is now the same as in the last WHCs so you have some familiar buddies with you. How important do you think it is that you are used to each other and have trained together for a long time?"
Laine: "It'll probably help quite a bit. The WHCs went really well. Still, it probably doesn't really matter who I'm playing with as the other guys are all such good players that it'd likely work out with anyone. Still, it's nice that I can at least begin this tournament playing with these guys.
Reporter: "You are now playing on the left wing like last spring?" (My comment: OPEN YOUR EYES, REPORTER GUY!)
Laine: "No, last spring I played on the right wing and that was a bit... I rather play on the left wing so it's good that we switched it around so it'll be a bit more comfortable.
Reporter: "How did you reach this conclusion? Did you have a discussion about this?"
Laine: "No not really, Marjamäki just said that I'm the left wing and Jussi is right so I just went to the left." (My comment: There's a reason Marjamäki is my favorite Finnish coach)
Reporter: "And that suits you really well?"
Laine: "Yeah, I was pleased to hear the decision that I am going to be playing on the left wing."
Reporter: "How many more kms have you accumulated for your BMW?"
Laine: "I haven't counted but a couple of thousand km as I've been traveling between Turku and Tampere."
Reporter: "You have changed the brand of your stick...(Rest I can't make out due to ambient noise)"
Laine: "Yeah, I've been testing all sorts of sticks during the summer and Bauer fit in my hand well so we're going to test it for these real games as well."
Reporter: "And you can shoot well with it?"
Laine: "Well, pretty decently at least. I believe that I can probably score a goal or two with it at some point in time."
Reporter: "Was it a lot of trouble, switching the sticks?"
Laine: "No, I just tested a couple of sticks and that one was pretty good so I decided to order a few of those."
Reporter: "And the same flexes and paddles?"
Laine: "Yeah, everything else's the same too and the guy's the same as well, so..
Reporter: "The guy's the same? So he hasn't improved at all?"
Laine: "Well, I've improved but the guy's the same so, I haven't really changed even though I hopefully have gained some more strength."
Reporter: "And the flex is the same even though the guy's stronger?"
Laine: "Well yeah, uh... It's a little more stiff but it's still such that one should be able to shoot well with it."
So what we can take away from this is:
#1: Morreale is dumb for saying Laine is a RW for NHL.com, same with all those other scouting sites.
#2: Laine has become stronger
#3: He now uses a slightly higher Flex stick but it should function the same way as the last one. This probably means that Laine can add power to all of his shots.
Props to the last reporter for seemingly knowing something about the sticks. He clearly wasn't some random reporter who asks nonsense questions.
Now part two of my post, some stuff in the text:
Laine:
"I'm now in better condition than during the spring. My last spring's level wouldn't be good enough for anything."
"My strength and explosiveness have increased. Hopefully I can transfer my improved lifts to the rink as well."
"It's a great tournament and I'm proud that I've managed to get myself here. I'm going to the tournament excited, bravely and without preconceptions."
"In Toronto, my goal is to be able to play and so that I'm not completely run over. The goal is to play so that I don't have to sit in the press box."
About small rink size:
"In practice I've been bumping into the sides of the rink a little as I'm used to the larger rink of Hakametsä. Hopefully, it'll be commonplace to play in the small rink during the next season, so World Cup is good practice in that regard as well."
I wonder if this was everything. The highlight of the interview to me was Laine saying that he doesn't want to take all the confidence of Scheifele and Trouba away by being too good.
Nyholm and Rantanen were mostly right. Laine is not yet anywhere near complete player.
