Player Discussion: Laine (mod warning OP)

[Jetfaninflorida]

Our throw away forward Joel Armia has more goals than Laine this year. All Laine needs to do is get back to shooting. Somehow the Jets have de-developed that instinct out of him. Now when he is in prime high danger areas he finds himself trying to dish a pass of instead of picking a corner. It will come back to him soon - I hope.

 

[WolfgangPuck]

Every year Like a box of chocolates never know what you get from Laine
Enjoy watching the progression of his game.
Im convinced he was determined to be playmaker this year so he can stay on the top line with Scheifele rather than be stuck with Little.

 

[Spock]

Our throw away forward Joel Armia has more goals than Laine this year. All Laine needs to do is get back to shooting. Somehow the Jets have de-developed that instinct out of him. Now when he is in prime high danger areas he finds himself trying to dish a pass of instead of picking a corner. It will come back to him soon - I hope.

Re: bolded
What are you implying?

 

[DRW204]

 

[Jetfaninflorida]

Re: bolded
What are you implying?

I am not implying anything. I made very clear statements in that post reflective of my opinion. Read my full post. The bolded you quoted is simply a statement of fact.

 

[Spock]

I am not implying anything. I made very clear statements in that post reflective of my opinion. Read my full post. The bolded you quoted is simply a statement of fact.

Okay. It's rare that someone posts: "Throwaway" Player A has more goals than Player B - with nothing implied.

 

[Howard Chuck]

Would be very interesting to know what changed.

 

[Adam da bomb]

Okay. It's rare that someone posts: "Throwaway" Player A has more goals than Player B - with nothing implied.

The implication I took away from it is Laine has to shoot it more and be the goal scorer we know he is.

 

[ffh]

What's changed is the time and space teams dont give him anymore. And the time and space he cant create on his own cause he isnt fast nor quick enough.

 

[Neuf]

Ok Laine, your year off from scoring is over. You scored more last November than in the year since.

 

[Deedog99]

Would be very interesting to know what changed.

Every team has now played him a handful of times. He's not that hard to defend and is lazy in his own end.

 

[Farmboy Patty]

What's changed is the time and space teams dont give him anymore. And the time and space he cant create on his own cause he isnt fast nor quick enough.

Do you think that he had lots of time and space when he was filling the net earlier? It probably took the whole league under 20 games to figure out that they can’t give Laine time and space to shoot.

Laine scores mostly off the rush and on the PP. There are many reasons why that hasn’t happened so much this season, but less time and space is not one of them, because teams haven’t given him that for a 170 games or so.

Here’s my top three reasons for Laines relatively low goals total (regarding this season):

- Laine looks for the pass way too much instead of following his instinct to just score from anywhere like he has done his while career until last christmas.

- Laine is used mostly as a decoy and Wheeler has fallen off a cliff on the PP. The old plays don’t work most of the time, and they haven’t figured out a new way to maximize the PP units output. Laine is not a decoy or a secret weapon, he is a superweapon that everyone knows about by now and the Jets should look to get way, way more shots from him on the PP. Maurice went full ****** and tried to solve it by removing his superweapon from the top unit. I took 10 games or so before he realized that it was not a very good ”solution”. I’m hopeful that they’ll figure it out soon.

- Few good plays from Connor. Connor has played with his blinders on most of the time. He is by no means incapable of playmaking, but that part of his game has been as lacking as Laines scoring. Makes kind of sense, since they’re on the same line. This season it seems that most of the time Connor has no idea what to do with the puck unless he gets a scoring chance or a breakaway. That should also change since he’s been better at playmaking before.

All in all I’m not worried at all about Laines ability to score, and he and the team is still having success. Things should only get better from here, and that’s quite good when you think about that Laine is doing good already pointwise.

 

[Farmboy Patty]

Every team has now played him a handful of times. He's not that hard to defend and is lazy in his own end.

If he is not hard to defend against, then why is he the top scorer on the team this season? His defensive play is also better then that of his linemates.

 

[Duke749]

- Few good plays from Connor. Connor has played with his blinders on most of the time. He is by no means incapable of playmaking, but that part of his game has been as lacking as Laines scoring. Makes kind of sense, since they’re on the same line. This season it seems that most of the time Connor has no idea what to do with the puck unless he gets a scoring chance or a breakaway. That should also change since he’s been better at playmaking before.

All in all I’m not worried at all about Laines ability to score, and he and the team is still having success. Things should only get better from here, and that’s quite good when you think about that Laine is doing good already pointwise.

Swapping Connor and Roslovic may fix this issue.

 

[DRW204]

difference of 2.72 SOGs/gp vs 3.02 is ~24 SOG/82 games. I am not sure if that's considered a significant difference in terms of shooting opportunities. His actual iCF/Shot-Attempt (from NSS) over the same time frame (beg of '16-11/30/2018 vs 12/01/2018-present) went from 5.56/gp vs 5.25 gp too. His SH%/Finishing Ability has flat-out regressed imo. I don't think he's gotten lack of opportunities just not converting them at a high-rate anymore.

He's also passed up some stellar opportunities for some reason - which evidently doesn't get tracked in his SOGs or Shot Attempts - I know Maurice might end up getting shit on for that in this thread, however i have a very hard time believing Maurice would be telling a guy of Laine's historical shooting efficiency to pass up grade A opps like that. I could be wrong though, but just have trouble believing that...

 

[NotCommitted]

Laine not shooting is on no one but himself. He'll come around, I think he just needs to get this playmaking and two-way game out of his system He's been playing super defensively, he's always cheating for defence in the o-zone :p

 

[Atoyot]

I'm going to talk about something that I briefly mentioned in the Moose thread, and that's training.

I have a background as a classical guitarist and have done some teaching, and one of the biggest mistakes people make training is that they know what they're good at, so they keep doing it and hammering it in, while they don't really focus on what they're bad at simply because it's a lot less fun to be bad at something than it is to be good at something. Thing is that there is a lot more room for improvement working on your weaknesses whereas improving on your strengths will be less and less effective relative to the time put into them.

Laine is working hard at something that he's not known for, his shot will always be there but he's putting a lot of effort into an area of his game that he's been criticized for in the past. Because of this he might be overly focused on it and he might use it at the wrong times and make mistakes, but the fact that he's addressing it is way more important to me than a couple mistakes as it's showing a willingness to learn and that he doesn't want to be a one trick pony. When he gets more comfortable with this area of his game he should be able to be more discerning on when to shoot or pass, but I believe he'll be better overall because of it in the end.

 

[cbcwpg]

Would be very interesting to know what changed.

I just don't think shooting % of 17%, 18%, and 21% were sustainable in today's NHL, but I also didn't think he would drop off to below 10%.

 

[Howard Chuck]

Every team has now played him a handful of times. He's not that hard to defend and is lazy in his own end.

It took 3 years for teams to notice that he was scoring pretty much at will? NHL players must be the slowest learners on the planet It's like saying that teams are just starting to notice that McJesus is fast.

It might be some of that, but it's not the whole story I don't think.

 

[Howard Chuck]

I'm going to talk about something that I briefly mentioned in the Moose thread, and that's training.

I have a background as a classical guitarist and have done some teaching, and one of the biggest mistakes people make training is that they know what they're good at, so they keep doing it and hammering it in, while they don't really focus on what they're bad at simply because it's a lot less fun to be bad at something than it is to be good at something. Thing is that there is a lot more room for improvement working on your weaknesses whereas improving on your strengths will be less and less effective relative to the time put into them.

Laine is working hard at something that he's not known for, his shot will always be there but he's putting a lot of effort into an area of his game that he's been criticized for in the past. Because of this he might be overly focused on it and he might use it at the wrong times and make mistakes, but the fact that he's addressing it is way more important to me than a couple mistakes as it's showing a willingness to learn and that he doesn't want to be a one trick pony. When he gets more comfortable with this area of his game he should be able to be more discerning on when to shoot or pass, but I believe he'll be better overall because of it in the end.

I really like this reasoning, and I hope that it's true.

 

[Farmboy Patty]

Swapping Connor and Roslovic may fix this issue.

That’s an interesting option, but I wouldn’t break up EWR now since they have something really good going on.

This goes a little off topic, but when Little and Appleton gets back, I hope well see 3 balanced scoring lines and our bona fide shutdown line with Lowry, Copp and a 3rd guy. ideally I’d like to see Perreault with Laine and Chef, so the line could look like this:

Perreault - Chef - Laine
Ehlers - Wheeler - Roslovic
Connor - Little - Appleton
Copp - Lowry - X

Mix and match and go top heavy when behind in the last period.

 

[Adam da bomb]

That’s an interesting option, but I wouldn’t break up EWR now since they have something really good going on.

This goes a little off topic, but when Little and Appleton gets back, I hope well see 3 balanced scoring lines and our bona fide shutdown line with Lowry, Copp and a 3rd guy. ideally I’d like to see Perreault with Laine and Chef, so the line could look like this:

Perreault - Chef - Laine
Ehlers - Wheeler - Roslovic
Connor - Little - Appleton
Copp - Lowry - X

Mix and match and go top heavy when behind in the last period.

The fact that Pomo isn't willing to run 3 offensive lines is why I think he might end up going. But, not for a long long time considering the turnaround jets did with our current d.

 

[Gm0ney]

Laine's shots/60 (all situations):
2016-17: 9.4
2017-18: 10.7
2018-19: 10.4
2019-20: 9.9

Edit: BTW. you're probably not going to be able to detect a difference of 0.5 shots/60 with the eye test. He's been passing up a few good potential shots lately but he hasn't fallen off a cliff.

 

[PhilJets]

Would be very interesting to know what changed.

Mindset.


There was a sentence in one of the news early part of the season.

Someone said, Laine before thinks he needed to score for the team to win.
Now Laine they need to score for the team to win.

He was goal hungry before. Doesn't look like that from my i test this year.

Im not sure its good or bad.
He will set a career high in points and team is winning.

And he is in that "mindset" this is what he needs to do. That make me think he is thinking team first.

For me he just need to shoot a bit more.
And someone find him the puck.

I wouldnt break up the top 6 now but

Would this be interesting?

Connor Scheifele Roslovic
Ehlers Wheelers Laine


Again the talent is there he is not getting checked as some has mentioned. He dont need much space and time to shoot.
He is making a decision (for this year) to play this way.

Put him in pastrank line instead of him.
Probably have same goals or more.

 

[Psych0dad]

and is lazy in his own end.

We're still doing this BS?

Form a real opinion, watch a game.

Just above there's one saying he is too defensive and you come up with the opposite...one of you is wrong. I know which one it is.