Patrik Laine's goal drought helped him evolve into a more well-rounded player.
Patrik Laine tossed sports drinks to his teammates in the locker room and received plenty of barbs in return.with 44 goals last season, but on this day in practice he was on the losing end of a breakaway competition and became the water boy.With 30 goals and 50 points in 79 games, Laine hasn’t had a bad year offensively even amid long stretches of low production. He has had goal droughts of five, six, 12 and 15 games.
When it suddenly didn’t, Laine learned quickly he had to work to compensate in other aspects of the game. "It’s because Patty’s played way harder 5-on-5," Maurice said. "No amateur player comes in usually with an offensive bent and has any idea of how hard you have to play to play against the other team’s best. They spend some time and then they go, ‘OK, the top two lines on every team are completely different in some ways than the bottom two lines, the set of D I’ve got to play against.’ It takes them a while to learn the pace they have to play at.
The definition in Laine’s game and the work ethic, teammates say, comes from captain Blake Wheeler and alternate captain Mark Scheifele. Winnipeg’s two All-Stars don’t have the same raw talent or the wicked shot of Laine, but their examples have rubbed off on him.
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