Laine ready to put in the work to rebound from 2021 season

Given every excuse in the book, Patrik Laine refused to use them.
It was suggested an early season trade made it hard for him to adjust to a new city. It was brought up that couldn't have been easy to integrate into a new team midseason, especially when Covid protocols made it difficult if not impossible for him to truly spend time with his new teammates. He was even given the reasoning that playing for a coach who preaches checking and believed in swapping lines based on how a game was going had to make it hard to create chemistry or get open for the shots he's used to taking.

But Laine turned to none of them in explaining how a one-time 40-goal scorer finished with 10 goals and a minus-29 rating in 45 games with the Blue Jackets.
Instead, he simply said one thing -- he has to be better, and he will be.
"My explanation is I just didn't play well enough," he said during Monday's exit interviews. "That's my explanation. I'm not going to make any excuses. I just wasn't good enough. That's just the case. I'm sure that it's gonna help me in the future.
"It's not the first tough stretch I've gone through and it's not going to be the last one either. So at the time it feels horrible, but I'm sure when you look back at it in a couple of years, it's going to be good for you and you've learned a lot of things from it, and I just have to put this all behind me and worry about the future."

In speaking for 15 minutes with the sniper who compiled 140 goals in 306 games over four-plus seasons in Winnipeg -- an average of 0.46 goals per game with the Jets that dropped to 0.22 per game in Columbus -- the constant theme of his comments is that he will be better going forward, something that has to be music to the ears of general manager Jarmo Kekalainen.
Laine was part of the return in the early-season deal that sent Pierre-Luc Dubois to the Jets, a blockbuster trade that reshaped two franchises just five games into the season. But for whatever reason, it just didn't click for Laine early on in Columbus, as after six goals in his first 10 games with the team, he had four the rest of the year.
Of course, one of them was the team's goal of the year April 12, a 200-foot burst of speed, power, strength and skill that saw him blow through the Chicago defense, deke past defenseman Calvin de Haan as he entered the zone and deposit a puck past goalie Kevin Lankinen. While Laine is known for his blistering one-timer from the left circle, it was the kind of goal that shows he can be the total package when things are going his way.

Kekalainen expects that to be the case more often in the future for the forward who not only has that elite shot but the ability to skate with the puck through traffic and distribute it to teammates.
"I don't think his skill has gone anywhere," the CBJ general manager said. "He is 23 years old, which is easy to forget. He seems like he's been in the league for a long time and had some pretty good success, and this year didn't go the way he wanted. He's going to have to reassess here in the summer, get back into training and get ready for next season to get back on the level that he is expected to be on.
"I am pretty sure that nobody is more disappointed in Patrik Laine's year than Patrik himself. That's probably an example of a young player that struggled this year for various reasons."
But again, Laine refused to dip into the reservoir of excuses for his lack of production. He will take some time to decompress -- he told Finnish outlets he won't take part in the World Championships after the rough season -- but he is looking forward to showing what he can do next year.
"You can always be better overall," he said. "You gotta worry about all the aspects of your game. That's what I'm gonna do this summer to be in the best shape possible and work on the little things in the game so I can leave this year behind me and be better. Obviously, I feel this was a step backwards for me after my last season in Winnipeg, but I'll be better next year. There's a lot of time this summer, and I just have to use it well."
For someone like Jack Roslovic, who came to Columbus with Laine in the trade, it wouldn't be a huge surprise to see Laine get back to the form that allowed him to post 36 goals as a rookie at age 18 in 2016-17, score 44 a year later, or allow him to be nearly a point-per-game player in 2019-20 when he had a career-high 35 assists.
"I've seen him put up a crazy number of goals," Roslovic said. "I don't know if that was just the new trade or whatever it might have been, the comfortability ... but I think there is no person who is more frustrated about it than himself. I know he's a fiery guy and he'll come back with a vengeance."
While Laine goes into the offseason a restricted free agent, Kekalainen said it is "self-explanatory" that he remains a huge piece of the CBJ puzzle. For his part, while the season on the ice did not go anywhere near the way Laine planned, he said he enjoyed his time in the city of Columbus and can't wait to return.
"I have enjoyed every minute I've been here," he said. "I love it here, and it was great to see the fans in the stands, too. It's a great fan base. Obviously I couldn't see the full building this year. When I came here, there were no fans at all in the building, so it was kind of nice to see (them) toward the end. But no, I love it here and I want to stay here for sure."