I think the issue seems to be that people are looking at laine's progression in the last 5 or 6 months and assuming it will be linear. Prospects improve in stops and starts. Or they stagnate
Im not sure how people dont know this. Thats why track record is so important
Or maybe the issue is that Laine suffered for quite a while for a knee injury, that hindered his one whole off season training, and he had to also be recuperating from it even during the first half of this season. He was completely underestimated by almost every scout because of the skating problems that he had during that time. Only since this year he has been thoroughly able to improve his skating and do the proper muscle training for his feet. The forthcoming off-season will be huge for him, if he will avoid any other leg injuries.
While Laine was having these problems with his knee, Matthews was gaining a clear gap on him, but it was also almost completely forgotten how great talent Laine really is. Only after the WJC the scouts started waking up to the reality again. Laine is anyway almost 8 months younger than Matthews, and he is clearly still also physically rawer than Matthews. Even despite these facts, he has been the better player in WJC and also in the national league playoffs than Matthews. Just wait and see what happens, when Laine catches up the physical development delay that he got during his serious knee injury.
Matthews will be a very good player, but to me it is absolutely clear that Laine will become an even better player and a bigger star. Only thing that could maybe change it, would be another really nasty injury. I definitely hope that neither of them will get any problems with major injuries. And hopefully they both become top stars to the NHL. I don't even mind if Matthews becomes a better player and bigger star, but I find that extremely unlikely still.
The bias is absolutely equal on both sides I think.
...it might have been just that TSN account.
