Jets fans have been burned once by our beloved highly entertaining Finn sniper leaving just as we really got to know him. As a Jets fan myself i am in zero rush to see Laine on another team. NO compensation will substitute the entertainment derived from a sniper of this caliber. People can talk about defensive deficiencies all they want but when Laine is in the offensive zone he is 100% a threat at any point from ANYwhere. His shot is THAT incredible. Jets have a lot of defensive minded forwards already so in my mind Laine can just keep plugging away at his defensive game at his own pace as he develops into a more rounded nhl vet. If he wants to leave Winnipeg for brighter lights i would prefer the Jets to play out his remaining RFA years so i could at least enjoy him as a fan for however long i get to.
I like Laine. I think he fits the Jets team perfectly. My only wish is that he could see the value in being another equal threat on Line 2. Line 1, Line 2, what difference does it make? There is value in all roles.
I would like the Jets to lock up Laine long term.
Any trade regardless of whether or not the value is there wont replace the pure entertainment that Laine brings. It is very special.
We're not talking about a guy whose been dominating the league. This is a guy who had the worst +/- on his team by a standard deviation. A guy who had among the worst Corsi in the league; the Jets as a whole had a 48.3% CF, or minus 184. Despite having a 60% offensive zone push last year Laine was 45% CF at evens / minus 168 Corsi on his own.
Then you look at how he effects Little; without Laine, Little played 402 minutes and has a CF of 49%. With Laine he played 623 minutes at 44.7 CF. Compared to Laine with Little playing 623 with 44.7% CF and 444 without Little at 45.1% CF. You follow those numbers through and all of Littles fancies are dragged down by Laine and Laine is about the same regardless who he plays with. Who is dragging down who, Laine? This is a player that got caved in at even strength. His Relative Goals for % was -10.9% compared to Littles -4.8%.
For a player that's supposedly hard on himself, he's basically was a complete liability unless on the powerplay. He needs to take a look in the mirror because everyone he played with last year produced better results in both ends of the rink without him.
There is being bad defensively and there is completely and utterly being a liability despite hard sheltering. Laine did not move the dial on the Jets winning games last year. By the numbers he should have played 4th line minutes because he got his teeth kicked in when deployed on 3rd line minutes, forget 1st line minutes.
I think y'all need a better linemate for Little and Lowry. Atleast one that won't shit talk them to the media.
Tell your GM to pay him then. Simple as that. If your GM is not willing to pay him, this is what happens.
I don't think Laine's play merits him getting paid. Historically goal scoring has correlated with playing well, but Laine doesn't help the Jets win. He got scored on more than he scored with soft minutes in terms of zone starts and competition. He's basically as sheltered as you can get and he still produced bad results.
