This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →
Patrik Laine
Columbus Blue Jackets Left Wing
The 2nd-hardest shot among forwards, taken from the lowest share of slot ice in the league, on 40.5 per cent of the chances.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | WPG | 73 | 36 | 28 | 64 | +7 | 26 | 9 | 0 | 5 | 204 | 17.6 | 17:55 |
| 2017-18 | WPG | 82 | 44 | 26 | 70 | +8 | 24 | 20 | 0 | 8 | 241 | 18.3 | 16:29 |
| 2018-19 | WPG | 82 | 30 | 20 | 50 | -24 | 42 | 15 | 0 | 3 | 245 | 12.2 | 17:14 |
| 2019-20 | WPG | 68 | 28 | 35 | 63 | +8 | 22 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 226 | 12.4 | 19:25 |
| 2020-21 | WPG/CBJ | 46 | 12 | 12 | 24 | -28 | 25 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 82 | 14.6 | 17:27 |
| 2021-22 | CBJ | 56 | 26 | 30 | 56 | -7 | 24 | 5 | 0 | 7 | 167 | 15.6 | 18:50 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 407 | 176 | 151 | 327 | -36 | 163 | 61 | 0 | 25 | 1165 | 15.1 | 17:49 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
26 goals and 30 assists in 56 games — 56 points at 18:50 a night, minus-7, with 24 penalty minutes.
40.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 818 minutes, the 3rd percentile among the 393 qualified forwards. His ice went 41-42 against an expectation of 30.75-45.14 — ten more goals for than the chances promised and three fewer against.
2.92 even-strength points per 60 is the 92nd percentile. He produced at a top-line rate on ice that was being outchanced sixty-forty, which is a strange sentence and an accurate one.
The Finesse Game
His top shot speed was 101.5 mph, the 2nd-hardest of the 365 forwards the tracking covers — Tage Thompson’s 101.6 is the only one above it. The median attempt travels 36 feet, the 99th percentile for distance, and 22 per cent of his shots came from the slot, the lowest share of any of the 393 qualified forwards.
That is the whole player in three numbers. He shoots from range, harder than almost anyone, and 15.6 per cent of them go in — the 85th percentile — because the release is quick enough that 36 feet plays like 25. 3:41 a night on the power play is the 94th percentile and it is where the shot is worth the most.
2.96 giveaways per 60 is the 96th percentile among forwards and it counts against him.
The Physical Game
6-4 and 208. 1.93 hits and 0.74 blocks per 60, the 19th and 5th percentiles among forwards, and 0.40 penalties drawn per 60 is the 10th. He is a large man who is very difficult to find in the defensive third.
38.8 per cent of his even-strength time was in the offensive zone, the 9th percentile. Nothing about the deployment was sheltered and nothing about the results survived it.
The Intangibles
Second overall in 2016, 407 games and 176 goals at 24, with a career minus-36.
With Zach Werenski on the ice Columbus took 49.7 per cent of the chances; without him Laine was at 35.0, across 617 attempts together and 944 apart. Those are both real samples and the gap is fourteen points. The measured case is that he is a power-play weapon who needs a particular defenceman to survive five-on-five, and the club is about to pay him as a first-line winger.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
35.7% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 98th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
- clutch· scored his goals when the game was still live
5 of his 26 goals late or in overtime, 93rd percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure barely repeats (0.06) · 10% keep it
“22 per cent of his shots came from the slot, the lowest share of any of the 393 qualified forwards.”
“He is a large man who is very difficult to find in the defensive third.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 818 minutes
- Expected goals
- 40.5%
- 4th pct
- Shot attempts
- 45.5%
- 17th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 41 for, 42 against. Expected: 30.8 and 45.1.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 18 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.
Both bars are percentiles among the 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 54 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2021-22 · 56 games
- Top speed
- 22.2 mph
- 54th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.73 a game
- Distance
- 2.92 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 101.5 mph
- 100th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.1
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2021-22 · 818 minutes at five-on-five
- Boone Jenner57%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2021-22
- The club
- CBJ took 44.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 40.5% — 4.3 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second line, 818 minutes at five-on-five — 42nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boone Jenner | 40.3% | 40.8% | 44.9% |
| Jakub Voracek | 39.5% | 41.3% | 45.2% |
| Gustav Nyquist | 41.6% | 39.7% | 44.3% |
40.3% together, 40.8% for him apart and 44.9% for Jenner apart. Jenner was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more than for him.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
238 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 25 of them goals. His median goal came from 30 feet. 16% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 36% from beyond forty.