2. Laine and Torts:That honesty, I think, will be a key to the relationship between the winger and CBJ head coach John Tortorella. Many in the hockey world have wondered how the two will bond -- Torts is viewed as not always having the greatest of connections with young, offensively skilled players, and if there's a knock on Laine's game in the hockey world, it's that his defensive metrics aren't stellar -- but one thing that's underappreciated about the head coach is if you turn in an honest effort, he can handle mistakes. Tortorella also likes characters, and Laine appears to be both authentic and not afraid to speak his mind. It has the potential to be a much better relationship than some pundits believe.
"He is a good guy to be around," Tortorella said. "On my phone calls with him, I enjoy talking with him. I think he presents himself and has thoughts. I think he certainly is willing to give his opinion on things, which I think is very good."
3. A decent start: Laine didn't get on the scoresheet, but he could have. He fed Cam Atkinson in on goalie Jake Oettinger in the first period, but the puck hopped off the CBJ winger's stick before he got a shot off. Later, Laine threw a beautiful pass to traffic to Seth Jones as the latter cut to the net, but Oettinger got big enough to make the save on a play that could have led to a goal. Laine also had a power-play one-timer in the first period that was blocked, which is a shame because Alexandre Texier had set a nice screen in front of Oettinger. That's hockey, but you could see Laine's positives -- in addition to the blistering shot we all expected (poor Nick Caamano), his vision and passing already showed one game in.
"Listen, I thought he had some good shifts," Tortorella said. "I know he wanted to get some more shots through, they blocked a couple on him, but I thought he made some really good passing plays."
4. He's a workhorse:Before the game, Tortorella said he had talked to Laine and said it would be OK if he had to take a shift or two off as the game went on. After all, Laine hadn't played in more than three weeks because of injury then his visa and quarantine restrictions, and his head was sure to be swimming at times as he got used to his new team's systems. Instead, Laine played 20:54, not just the most of any CBJ forward in the game but the fourth most of any CBJ forward in a game this year. That will happen for an offensive threat when his team is playing catchup, but it was still an impressive total given the circumstanes.
"This is the situation we're in," Tortorella said. "(Conditioning) is not always going to come through practice, but I know he's done his work in the summer and that will come quickly."
5. Laine's lines: Sorry, it's just too hard not to sometimes. But as far who he played with, Laine started on the left wing with Texier as his center and Atkinson as his right wing. Midway through the game, the center was changed to Jack Roslovic, likely to try to get Laine some more comfort on the ice with a familiar face. Tortorella said in the morning skate that time will tell who Laine plays the most with, but that was the start. Laine said comfort will grow as the games go by, but it will at the very least be interesting to follow who he spends the majority of the time on the ice with.
"Obviously it's always fun to play with good players," he said. "Try to find the match for you and whose game is clicking with one of the players, just try to find that. … We had some good things with both looks that we had."
