On Monday afternoon after months of trade rumors, the Patrik Laine saga in Columbus came to an end when the Blue Jackets sent the forward, along with a 2026 second-round pick to the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for defenseman Jordan Harris.
The lackluster return for Columbus may come as a shock at first glance, but once new General Manager Don Waddell came out and said that Laine had no interest in a return to the Blue Jackets this upcoming, any leverage (if any) the Jackets had at their disposal was gone.
The Blue Jackets with this deal have made it clear, that they just wanted to get this done as soon as possible, which opened the door for Kent Hughes and the Montreal Canadiens to bring in Laine while not giving up substantial.
Laine, who left the Blue Jackets in March of this year due to mental health reasons, has stated recently that is now in the mental space to return to the NHL but did believe for his well-being, he did need a fresh start elsewhere to resume his hockey career, which led to this trade to Montreal.
Laine, a former forty-goal scorer, has not lived up to the high expectation he set for himself after his first two seasons in the NHL after scoring thirty-six goals in year one (2016-17), which was followed by a forty-four goal season in his sophomore campaign (2017-18) after being the second overall pick in 2016 by the Winnipeg Jets.
Since those two seasons, Laine's production has dropped, mostly due to health as he has only scored three goals once since those first two seasons, and has also not played at least sixty games in a season since the 2019-20 season where that year the Jets traded him to the Blue Jackets for Pierre-Luc Dubois.
Despite his drop-off, Laine has still been a consistent 20-25 goal scorer when he has played at least 55 games. This past season, Laine only played in 18 games but still scored six goals, which continues that pace of around 20 goals a year if he had played 55 games.
Even if Laine never scores forty goals again, hell, even if he never scores thirty, but continues to score about the 20-25 you can rely on from him, this was an outstanding move by the Montreal Canadiens.
Montreal has been one of the least productive offensive teams in the NHL over the past few seasons, they simply need to bring in talent this off-season to the forward group. Kent Hughes set that up for the future by drafting Russian star Ivan Demidov at fifth overall in the NHL Draft in June, but for this upcoming year, bringing Laine is one of the best low-risk, high-reward deals I can think of in recent NHL memory.
I assume Laine will be slotted into the second line where he will be centered by another former top-three pick in Kirby Dach, who also has dealt with injury woes throughout his career. If the two of them can play together consistently for most of the year, I expect the two of them to develop a nice chemistry.
Also, trading a defenseman helps open more minutes for the younger talent on the defense core that needs to play with the likes of Lane Hutson, and possibly David Reinbacher playing in the NHL this upcoming season.
At the end of the day, talent like this doesn't come available on the trade market often, and when you can acquire it for less value than it is probably worth, I think you have to do it, especially when it helps fit a pressing need for your team.
In 2024-25, I expect Laine to put up his typical 25 goals if he can play about sixty games and put his career back on track with Montreal as the team looks to start playing meaningful games later into the regular season.
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