"I have watched him," Tortorella said Saturday. "You can't help but watch from afar, he's such a prolific goal scorer. He seems like an interesting guy. He has some personality to him. And just talking to him today, I really enjoyed the conversation.
"It's a team here that has struggled to score some goals, and obviously in this type of position we were put in, this is a really good deal for us."
The acquisition of Laine from Winnipeg -- along with center Jack Roslovic in exchange for Pierre-Luc Dubois and a third-round draft pick in 2022 -- gives Columbus a weapon it didn't have in a prolific winger who can fill up the net, as evidenced by the fact Laine has averaged 38 goals per 82 games in his NHL career despite his relative youth.
And it allows Kekalainen to add a player he's long coveted, all the way back to when Laine went No. 2 overall at the 2016 draft, one spot ahead of where the CBJ general manager drafted Dubois.
"We're really excited here," Kekalainen said. "I can tell you from the draft we drafted Pierre-Luc at three and Patrik Laine was No. 2. We would have given a lot to move up from three to two at the time. We're very excited to have Patrik Laine join us. There's a price to be paid for an elite player like he is."
Kekalainen and Laine are not strangers, as the two were both born in Tampere, Finland, while the CBJ general manager was a member of the management team for Finland's team in the 2016 World Cup of Hockey that featured Laine. The hope for Kekalainen, as the general manager put it, is to build a long-term relationship with Laine, who enters the season with just one year left on his contract before he enters restricted free agency.
When asked if he'd have an interest in staying in Columbus long-term, Laine pointed to Kekalainen's enthusiasm as a plus.
"Obviously he was excited to get me on board and trade a big-time player like Dubois for me, so that's obviously a big thing for me that the team wants me and wants me bad," Laine said. "And I'm open (to a long-term discussion) for sure. Hopefully that is going to be a spot where I'm enjoying life and enjoying hockey. Everything I have heard about the organization, city, it's only positive things.
"They have a good, young team and hopefully I can bring my playmaking abilities and my shooting abilities into the team and work as hard as I can and hopefully build something good."
On the ice, Laine's skills start with a blistering shot that makes him one of the league's most lethal goal scorers. He didn't take long to learn the league, netting 36 goals as an 18-year-old rookie in 2016-17 and adding a career-high 44 a year later. With two goals in the lone game he's played this year -- he has missed three with an upper-body injury considered to be minor -- Laine scores twice and added an assist, giving him round numbers of 140 goals, 110 assists and 250 points in 306 games in Winnipeg.
Of those goals, 52 of them have come on the power play, including an NHL-best 20 in 2017-18. Laine should add a new component to what has been a struggling CBJ power play over recent years, and he also is coming off a campaign in which he had a career-high 35 assists.
"I think he's an excellent power-play player," Kekalainen said. "Often people think of him as a shooter, which he is a great shooter, but he's also a great passer. Those are things that excite me a lot. We have a weapon for our power play that we may not have had before."
If there's been a knock on Laine, it's been on his defensive play, but Laine says his game has improved quite a bit over the years into a more well-rounded player.
"I think overall coming (to Winnipeg) four and half years ago as an 18-year-old think my game, it's night and day, the difference nowadays," Laine said. "Now I'm 22, I have been learning so much about the game, how to play the game, how to be a guy that wins his own battles. There are a lot of things I still need to improve, but I think I'm on a good path. I had a good first game of the season and obviously missed the last three, but I'll be ready to take the next step with Columbus and I think it'll be a big one."
Laine will still need to acquire a work visa and travel to Columbus, so he and the team are unsure when he might make his CBJ debut. But from the conversations that he's had with Tortorella and Kekalainen so far, he is ready to come to the capital city and show what he can do.
"We had some good talks," Laine said. "I obviously talked to Jarmo and Torts and had a good talk. We didn't talk too much yet, just kind of a little bit of expectations and how excited both parties are for me to arrive in Columbus. I was expressing how happy I am to be a Blue Jackets now, and they are all really excited to have me on board. I'm just excited to get things going and I'm finally going to wear that jersey."
