Hilarious. Laine has had nothing to do with Scheifele and Wheelers outside the powerplay whatsoever neither last season, nor today. No, Matthews definitely never had been in the same situation as Laine is, by being used as a secondary scoring with extremely limited minutes. Last season Laine played with aTOI of 16:29 while Matthews cruised with 18:08. I would take the 1,5 minutes in a hard beat over the PP time advantage Laine has. No player in the world can compete in production vs other greats in the league by playing second line minutes. So if you're comparing their positions and who's had the tougher route, that isn't Matthews. Yeah I'd definitely be thrilled if this was the year Laine got the play as much as Matthews, but the likes of Little and Perrault are hardly carved out as "1b" class of players and if the first game gives any indication, the mighty ~15 minutes Laine actually played, I doubt much has changed and he'll be fighting against every odds once again. I just find it extremely entertaining when you try portrait Matthews in an inferior position compared to Laine when the reality is exactly the opposite.
Well the jury certainly is still out there and that vast little minority has been right about most things in Laine's career so far. He wasn't supposed to be good enough skater, shouldn't have been able to score against NHL level goalkeepers or even play at this level already at age of 18. Yet somehow he's by far the #1 teenager in the history of the game when you look at the amount of the scored goals in the era adjusted scoring charts. So if I'm in the minority that's by all means fine. I have no problems revisiting this topic at a later date.
Laine actually does hit players (and hard as well) and can be considered a hitter. He just doesn't do that too frequently because he doesn't want to lose the position. Matthews on the other hand never really gets physical and use his strength to knock someone out. A fear of retaliation? Dunno.
Ha, that just made my day. "Jets fans trying to make Laine great again". M'kay pal, whatever you say.