Player Discussion: Patrik Laine - MOD WARNING IN OP

[Romang67]

Patrik calming down kids in aeroplane after unscheduled landing because of a drunk passenger:

Good, Patrik. Now do calf raises.

A great example of athlete with high force to mass ratio is Norwegian olympic gold medalist in Javelin throw - Andreas Thorkildsen. Andreas was 190 cm tall and weight only little over 80 kg, with long and skinny arms. Here he is bench pressing 200kg

That's really not that impressive. I can do that too.

Not the up part, mind you.

 

[Jets]

Legendary.

 

[StumpyTown]

View attachment 128421
Legendary.

The angle of the picture makes it look like Teemu is slightly standing up on his toes to look taller.

 

[Ippenator]

Who's said he can't lift weights?

I want versatility in his training, I fail to see how not skating at all during summer is the best way to go, how are NA guys able to develop some of the best skaters/players in the World?
They skate during summers.

You seriously are missing the point. None of Laine’s size (6’4) of players will become excellent skaters even after whatever amount of training, if they were not born with very much fast twitch muscles in their legs. And players that big with that natural ability are EXTREMELY rare. I don’t think I have seen any others truly like that than Wheeler. Just forget those much smaller great skaters like McDavid, Ehlers etc. Those guys are so much smaller and obviously have always had a lot of the fast twitch muscle cells in their legs. They didn’t actually train themselves to become such good skaters, but they have always been excellent skaters. None of Laine’s size of players will ever be skaters of the kind that McDavid or Ehlers are. Not even Wheeler, whom is definitely the best 6’5 sized skater that I have ever seen.

Laine’s skating problems don’t come from bad skating technique but from a big lack of those explosive leg muscle cells and also weakish stamina. He is fine with his turns, as beating MacKinnon and some other guys at 2017 All Stars skating competition should prove, if you can’t really see it otherwise. His serious problem is the NHL rink stop and go play, which makes him need to constantly accelerate - stop, accelerate again to just stop again and do that again and again in a way that his leg muscles and stamina can’t handle it already within even middle range long shifts.

Honestly doing your so much wanted skating training will do practically jackcrap to his skating at the moment. He needs to very much just get the leg muscles and his stamina fixed (and can’t do all that just without fixing some problems with core muscles too, which he did start already last off season too). But as I have posted already numerous times here, it is not a job to be done in one or even two off seasons.

It really seems like you choose not to believe me in this. Do as you please, but you will see eventually that I have been all along well aware of how it will go for Laine, and what is the best way to develop a player in his situation.

 

[BB88]

You seriously are missing the point. None of Laine’s size (6’4) of players will become excellent skaters even after whatever amount of training, if they were not born with very much fast twitch muscles in their legs. And players that big with thst natural ability are EXTREMELY rare. I don’t think I have seen any others truly like that than Wheeler.

Laine’s skating problems don’t come from bad skating technique but from a big lack of those explosive leg muscle cells and also weakish stamina. He is fine with his turns, as beating MacKinnon and some other guys at 2017 All Stars skating competition should prove, if you can’t really see it otherwise. His serious problems the NHL rink stop and go play, which makes him need to constantly accelerate - stop, accelerate again to just stop again and do that again and again in a say that his leg muscles and stamina can’t handle it already within even middle range long shifts.

Honestly doing your so much wanted skating training will do practically jackcrap to his skating at the moment. He needs to very much just get the leg muscles and his stamina fixed (and can’t do all that just without fixing some problems with core muscles too, which he did already last off season). But as I have posted already numerous times here, it is not a job to be done in one or even two off seasons.

It really seems like you choose not to believe me in this. Do as you please, but you will see eventually that I have been all along well aware of how it will go for Laine, and what is the best way to develop a player in his situation.

I somehow doubt this, and Laine definitely has work to do with his turns. He struggles with creating space, winning puck races and being involved in the game. He basically created nothing 5on5 at the beginning of the season because he was always chasing the play, never controlling it.

None of the Turku guys have become elite skaters, I'd love to see them become but it hasn't happened. They've gotten better but can you honestly say they are maxing their development?

Rants& Risto are ahead of Laine physically, have they added a skating coach this summer or are they still going with the same method?

 

[Ippenator]

I somehow doubt this, and Laine definitely has work to do with his turns. He struggles with creating space, winning puck races and being involved in the game. He basically created nothing 5on5 at the beginning of the season because he was always chasing the play, never controlling it.

None of the Turku guys have become elite skaters, I'd love to see them become but it hasn't happened. They've gotten better but can you honestly say they are maxing their development?

Rants& Risto are ahead of Laine physically, have they added a skating coach this summer or are they still going with the same method?

None of 6’4-6’5 tall players that were not already naturally elite skaters have ever become elite skaters by skating training. Sure Barkov became a good skater, but no way an elite skater. Not even that close to it. And I can assure you that not Laine or any other 6’5 player without a clearly naturally great amount of fast twitch muscles in their legs is going to become an elite skater with ANY KIND of training. It just will never happen unless the player is naturally born with a great amount of fast twitch muscles in their legs. In the way that Wheeler was. BTW, find me another 6’5 tall elite skater than Wheeler in the whole NHL. That should really make you understand what the situation is.

 

[Ippenator]

I somehow doubt this, and Laine definitely has work to do with his turns. He struggles with creating space, winning puck races and being involved in the game. He basically created nothing 5on5 at the beginning of the season because he was always chasing the play, never controlling it.

None of the Turku guys have become elite skaters, I'd love to see them become but it hasn't happened. They've gotten better but can you honestly say they are maxing their development?

Rants& Risto are ahead of Laine physically, have they added a skating coach this summer or are they still going with the same method?

And yes, I believe that Rantanen and Ristolainen are pretty much maximized with their physical condition. And neither of them will become much better skaters with any kind of skating training anymore. Some polishing can be always done with the skating, but the greatest meaning still comes from how good explosiveness and stamina you have in your legs.

Technical skating training is still more like polishing the skill, as they all are great skaters anyway already, if you compare to someone just playing for fun. They all have done enormous amounts of skating practicing. None of them are truly bad skaters. Bad skaters are just a hyperbole. The biggest differences between the skating speeds are still done with the explosiveness in the legs and with the stamina of the legs. And even then the differences are seriously not as great between ANY players as some people seem to seriously think. Just look at the skating competition times in All Stars events, or just look at the top skating speeds recorded in the WHC tournament, etc.

 

[Legend Leinonen]

None of 6’4-6’5 tall players that were not already naturally elite skaters have ever become elite skaters by skating training. Sure Barkov became a good skater, but no way an elite skater. Not even that close to it. And I can assure you that not Laine or any other 6’5 player without a clearly naturally great amount of fast twitch muscles in their legs is going to become an elite skater with ANY KIND of training. It just will never happen unless the player is naturally born with a great amount of fast twitch muscles in their legs. In the way that Wheeler was. BTW, find me another 6’5 tall elite skater than Wheeler in the whole NHL. That should really make you understand what the situation is.

Honestly, you are making no sense at all.
Bottom line is this: Laine should add skating to his summer training.

Deal.

 

[ffh]

You seriously are missing the point. None of Laine’s size (6’4) of players will become excellent skaters even after whatever amount of training, if they were not born with very much fast twitch muscles in their legs. And players that big with that natural ability are EXTREMELY rare. I don’t think I have seen any others truly like that than Wheeler. Just forget those much smaller great skaters like McDavid, Ehlers etc. Those guys are so much smaller and obviously have always had a lot of the fast twitch muscle cells in their legs. They didn’t actually train themselves to become such good skaters, but they have always been excellent skaters. None of Laine’s size of players will ever be skaters of the kind that McDavid or Ehlers are. Not even Wheeler, whom is definitely the best 6’5 sized skater that I have ever seen.

Laine’s skating problems don’t come from bad skating technique but from a big lack of those explosive leg muscle cells and also weakish stamina. He is fine with his turns, as beating MacKinnon and some other guys at 2017 All Stars skating competition should prove, if you can’t really see it otherwise. His serious problem is the NHL rink stop and go play, which makes him need to constantly accelerate - stop, accelerate again to just stop again and do that again and again in a way that his leg muscles and stamina can’t handle it already within even middle range long shifts.

Honestly doing your so much wanted skating training will do practically jackcrap to his skating at the moment. He needs to very much just get the leg muscles and his stamina fixed (and can’t do all that just without fixing some problems with core muscles too, which he did start already last off season too). But as I have posted already numerous times here, it is not a job to be done in one or even two off seasons.

It really seems like you choose not to believe me in this. Do as you please, but you will see eventually that I have been all along well aware of how it will go for Laine, and what is the best way to develop a player in his situation.

god he didn't beat McKinnon he would lose by 2 furlongs in a race to McKinnon he barely beat Horvat in a photo finish who is not a great skater. he needs to work on his skating a lot.

 

[Ippenator]

Honestly, you are making no sense at all.
Bottom line is this: Laine should add skating to his summer training.

Deal.

Nope. He shouldn’t. Unless he and his trainer see it as an optimal time to start to do it. They 100% sure know it better than you know it.

 

[Ippenator]

god he didn't beat McKinnon he would lose by 2 furlongs in a race to McKinnon he barely beat Horvat in a photo finish who is not a great skater. he needs to work on his skating a lot.

He beat clearly MacKinnon’s time. You didn’t see it? And btw his time was not even that much behind Kucherov’s time or even that much behind McDavid’s time. Just google the time differences. Laines’s problems are not with the skating skills but with the lack of explosiveness and stamina. He can still train those to a point, especially stamina. But fixing the lack of fast twitch muscles in the legs to a point were he is not much behind those whom have had a lot more of the fast twitch muscles already naturally, is an extremely hard and time taking task. No technical skating exercise will change that fact.

 

[Ippenator]

For those who have already forgotten:

Bridgestone NHL Fastest Skater

Atlantic Division vs. Metropolitan Division
Kucherov (13.160) vs. Atkinson (13.330) - Atlantic wins 1 point
Trocheck (13.320) vs. Simmonds (13.650) - Atlantic wins 1 point
Central Division vs. Pacific Division
Laine (13.420) vs. Horvat (13.430) - Central wins 1 point
MacKinnon (13.620) vs. McDavid (13.020) - Pacific wins 1 point

 

[BB88]

And yes, I believe that Rantanen and Ristolainen are pretty much maximized with their physical condition. And neither of them will become much better skaters with any kind of skating training anymore. Some polishing can be always done with the skating, but the greatest meaning still comes from how good explosiveness and stamina you have in your legs.

Technical skating training is still more like polishing the skill, as they all are great skaters anyway already, if you compare to someone just playing for fun. They all have done enormous amounts of skating practicing. None of them are truly bad skaters. Bad skaters are just a hyperbole. The biggest differences between the skating speeds are still done with the explosiveness in the legs and with the stamina of the legs. And even then the differences are seriously not as great between ANY players as some people seem to seriously think. Just look at the skating competition times in All Stars events, or just look at the top skating speeds recorded in the WHC tournament, etc.

You just completely keep ignoring skating training.

Again, if it's so meaningless why are NA players using them during offseasons in their programs?
Why is NA able to produce some of the best players in the league year after year with elite skating?
Why is it the Finns that seem to produce high end talent with skating issues?

The guy who has been able to turn his skating around the best is Barkov, and surprise surprise he trained with a skating coach and skates during summers. I bet he'd agree with you that it was all pointless.

I would never try to argue Laine is better skater than Mackinnon or one of the best skaters in the league.

 

[Legend Leinonen]

Ippe, you are creating all sorts of red herrings. I don't care if he beat MacKinnon in some silly gimmick race. Fact is Laine is nowhere near the level of skater Mac is. You can see it from mile away.

Can you explain how 1-2 skating trainings per week, would hamper his strength conditioning that much. Let's say the main focus on these trainings would be on technique, so they could be taken as some slight recovery exercises from physical pov.

 

[ffh]

For those who have already forgotten:

Bridgestone NHL Fastest Skater

Atlantic Division vs. Metropolitan Division
Kucherov (13.160) vs. Atkinson (13.330) - Atlantic wins 1 point
Trocheck (13.320) vs. Simmonds (13.650) - Atlantic wins 1 point
Central Division vs. Pacific Division
Laine (13.420) vs. Horvat (13.430) - Central wins 1 point
MacKinnon (13.620) vs. McDavid (13.020) - Pacific wins 1 point

You’re aware that after McKinnon realized he was going to lose he backed off and Laine skated right to the end to win right. You know McKinnon is a better faster skater then Laine in every way.

 

[FinnJet]

I doubt there's a single succesfull sprinter/speed skater who trains for mass. What matters is force to mass ratio.

Well there's no need to train at all to gain mass.. But have you seen the legs of speed skater or a sprinters body. Those both are the result of muscle training. Skating and running doesn't give you any explosiveness, unless you'r talking about fine tuning your technique.

 

[Ippenator]

Ippe, you are creating all sorts of red herrings. I don't care if he beat MacKinnon in some silly gimmick race. Fact is Laine is nowhere near the level of skater Mac is. You can see it from mile away.

Can you explain how 1-2 skating trainings per week, would hamper his strength conditioning that much. Let's say the main focus on these trainings would be on technique, so they could be taken as some slight recovery exercises from physical pov.

They both have explained it in separate interviews. The main thing has been so far that they have acknowledged that he has been way too much behind in his explosive leg strength and core strength from his peers. And these both muscle areas are extremely essential for having any chance of making your skating clearly better with you acceleration.

So they decided that it is the most useful thing for him to maximize the leg muscle, core muscle and stamina training until he has achieved clearly good enough results for giving the good enough foundation for making his acceleration and stop and go play clearly better. It’s no use to do technical training really much at all until he is truly done with the harder training for training more explosiveness to the legs and getting his core stronger. Simply because all those muscles need to be on a good enough level and already settled to be able to gain technical benefits in the situation where the body is after growing through the hard training.

They said that it is in their opinion much more useful to at the moment use the efficient training time for all the muscle and stamina development that he needs, because he has been so clearly behind after his knee problems. I believe in their logic perfectly. It is fine thinking and it will give good results as soon as his explosive muscles can get clearly stronger to handle the bigger body weight that all his training has also gained. This is what happened with both Barkov and Scheifele during many years.

Btw, even if you don’t believe in the gimmick skating competition showing anything, just think of it. Why a player like Laine whom clearly has problems with acceleration, could beat some skaters that are considered as better skaters than him in the all star skating competition? Shouldn't it really be that if he is so bad at his skating technique and his turns, that after his slow acceleration (they started from full stop) and after that pretty soon a full turn and then again acceleration without even getting to his full speed, he was still able to clearly beat MacKinnon (whom didn’t fall or anything like that in his attempt), and barely lost to speedy skaters like Kucherov, Trochek and Atkinson. Or could it just be that Laine’s size is in fact fooling all of us pretty much?

I admit that when I first started watching Laine’s skating, I also thought of him to be a much worse skater than he really is. The long limbs and long strides can really give a pretty illusional picture of him being a horrible skater, which he definitely is not. I have been so much studying his and other bigger sized skater’s (6’4 or over) skating and development with it, that I have realized that none of them were and will never be considered as elite skaters (except Wheeler and maybe prime Lemieux), although many of them can be in fact deceptively fast, especially with their top speeds, and have even pretty darn good skating techniques. But many of them have had quite substantial problems with their acceleration, especially while still being younger players. And many of them have had to go through the same route of extremely hard explosive muscle training and stamina training for their legs. But not many of them had even the very unfortunate situation with knee injuries just a couple of years before their NHL rookie season, so Laine’s situation is not completely even comparable to the other bigger sized young players.

Still, Laine will already become a good skater if he just gets his explosiveness and stamina to the level that Barkov and Rantanen have. With that kind of abilities he will be a dominating player already. And honestly I don’t see it anyway possible that with any kind of training Laine could ever be more than a good or very good skater. Definitely with his size and his natural skating abilities he will never ever be a true elite skater, even whomever he would be training with and with whatever methods.

 

[Ippenator]

You’re aware that after McKinnon realized he was going to lose he backed off and Laine skated right to the end to win right. You know McKinnon is a better faster skater then Laine in every way.

To me it didn’t look like that very early. And anyway I’m not claiming that MacKinnon doesn't have better acceleration than Laine, as he definitely does have. But Laine has in fact already very good top speed and he can also turn very well with high speeds. If he didn’t have those abilities there would have been no way how he could have skated a time like 13.420 when the allmighty McDavid even didn’t skate faster than 13.020. It just tells that the difference is still not close to as big as some people seriously like to think of it.

 

[Ippenator]

Lets still compare a bit:

All star skating competition 2016 (similar way of competing as in 2017, for 2018 they changed the way of competing, so not comparable) compared with all star skating competition 2017:

2016
Participants/Results:
East:
Dylan Larkin, Detroit Red Wings / 12.894
Brandon Saad, Columbus Blue Jackets / 13.634
Erik Karlsson, Ottawa Senators / 14.630
Kris Letang, Pittsburgh Penguins / 14.081
West:
Roman Josi, Nashville Predators / 13.527
Matt Duchene, Colorado Avalanche / 14.026
Taylor Hall, Edmonton Oilers / 13.654
Dustin Byfuglien, Winnipeg Jets / 14.203

2017
Atlantic Division vs. Metropolitan Division
Kucherov (13.160) vs. Atkinson (13.330) - Atlantic wins 1 point
Trocheck (13.320) vs. Simmonds (13.650) - Atlantic wins 1 point
Central Division vs. Pacific Division
Laine (13.420) vs. Horvat (13.430) - Central wins 1 point
MacKinnon (13.620) vs. McDavid (13.020) - Pacific wins 1 point

 

[ffh]

Lets still compare a bit:

All star skating competition 2016 (similar way of competing as in 2017, for 2018 they changed the way of competing, so not comparable) compared with all star skating competition 2017:

2016
Participants/Results:
East:
Dylan Larkin, Detroit Red Wings / 12.894
Brandon Saad, Columbus Blue Jackets / 13.634
Erik Karlsson, Ottawa Senators / 14.630
Kris Letang, Pittsburgh Penguins / 14.081
West:
Roman Josi, Nashville Predators / 13.527
Matt Duchene, Colorado Avalanche / 14.026
Taylor Hall, Edmonton Oilers / 13.654
Dustin Byfuglien, Winnipeg Jets / 14.203

2017
Atlantic Division vs. Metropolitan Division
Kucherov (13.160) vs. Atkinson (13.330) - Atlantic wins 1 point
Trocheck (13.320) vs. Simmonds (13.650) - Atlantic wins 1 point
Central Division vs. Pacific Division
Laine (13.420) vs. Horvat (13.430) - Central wins 1 point
MacKinnon (13.620) vs. McDavid (13.020) - Pacific wins 1 point

When you are in heats it's all about beating the person or people in your race. Comparing 1 heat winning time with another is useless.

 

[Ippenator]

When you are in heats it's all about beating the person or people in your race. Comparing 1 heat winning time with another is useless.

Still his time was one of the better times with all those great skaters in two years in a row. Can’t admit it that he had in fact a pretty darn good time really?

 

[Tommigun]

And yes, I believe that Rantanen and Ristolainen are pretty much maximized with their physical condition. And neither of them will become much better skaters with any kind of skating training anymore. Some polishing can be always done with the skating, but the greatest meaning still comes from how good explosiveness and stamina you have in your legs.

Technical skating training is still more like polishing the skill, as they all are great skaters anyway already, if you compare to someone just playing for fun. They all have done enormous amounts of skating practicing. None of them are truly bad skaters. Bad skaters are just a hyperbole. The biggest differences between the skating speeds are still done with the explosiveness in the legs and with the stamina of the legs. And even then the differences are seriously not as great between ANY players as some people seem to seriously think. Just look at the skating competition times in All Stars events, or just look at the top skating speeds recorded in the WHC tournament, etc.

If any of that was true, why did Scheifele become such a good skater once he got a real skating coach? Laine needs to skate.

 

[Tommigun]

Nope. He shouldn’t. Unless he and his trainer see it as an optimal time to start to do it. They 100% sure know it better than you know it.

Then why was American press surprised when Laine said he doesn’t skate at all during the summers? Are you saying American players are training incorrectly, and this one strength coach knows better than all of them? Also, his strength trainer is NOT going to suggest Laine to add skating to his regime, because he’d lose money by proposing that.

 

[ello]

Still his time was one of the better times with all those great skaters in two years in a row. Can’t admit it that he had in fact a pretty darn good time really?

I'm with you on this one. Laine's skating fundamentals are actually pretty clean and his edgework is quite good for a man his size. I think that at least in this particular case, Laine would most likely benefit more from time in the gym and building up his lower body (whereas with someone like Vesalainen I would recommend more on-ice work since his stride is already quite explosive but the technical aspect of his skating is a little sloppier compared to most NHL players). Maybe some front squats and trap bar deadlifts to work on quad strength and explosiveness?

Obviously not trying to say that Laine's ever going to be as fast as him, but Barzal is a guy who is extremely fast yet his feet don't always move at 100mph like guys like Mackinnon and McDavid. You can just tell by watching him skate how much power he gets into each smooth stride, and just look how big his legs are: Google Image Result for https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DW1ST-BUQAEE7D4.jpg

Now no skating during the summer does seem quite extreme, since even the best players have things to work on and you'd want Laine to get used to using any newfound leg strength, but all things considered I personally believe that Laine would have more to gain from prioritizing strength training as opposed to countless hours of on-ice drills.

 

[Ippenator]

Then why was American press surprised when Laine said he doesn’t skate at all during the summers? Are you saying American players are training incorrectly, and this one strength coach knows better than all of them? Also, his strength trainer is NOT going to suggest Laine to add skating to his regime, because he’d lose money by proposing that.

You haven’t been clearly following too well what I have posted after all. I just posted that because Laine being so much behind with his physical issues to his peers is the reason why he and his trainer have so far decided to focus completely on the explosiveness, core exercising and stamina improvement. Seems that some people have anyway made up their mind about Laine and his trainer being wrong. But I trust them and my own logic being definitely right about this so the case is closed for me.