What do you guys think? pic.twitter.com/arBtw5d33p
— Everything Hockey (@EHClothing) November 8, 2016
It's looking like this name for Patrik Laine will stick with Jets fans and it's probably the most accurate. Unlike Teemu Selanne who was the Finnish Flash, Laine is nothing but deadly around the net and he proved it again last night in the Jets 8-2 shellacking of the Dallas Stars.
Now to confound the issues with the Jets they scored three power play goals, and they scored four goals in the second period too. The second period has been an absolute disaster for the Jets this season and adding four goals to it was seen as possible by no one.
Now let's not just focus on the bright shiny new toy that is Laine, Mark Scheifele had an excellent game as well with two goals and two assists for four points. When you add in Laine's three goals last night the stats leaders for the NHL look like:
That's not a bad look for the Jets rookie and current number one centre. Who saw that coming after 14 games? Right now no one cares if it's sustainable either because when these guys light things up it's too much fun to watch. I even don't mutter 'should've take Couturier' anymore.
Consider this Scheifele is on a 105 point pace for the season and Laine is on a 64 goal pace. Love it while it lasts Jets fans it likely won't. I believe Laine and Scheifele both come down to earth and that's okay because the Jets have other issues.
While some are saying the Stars are banged up and hardly the team they normally are what are the Jets?
They are without Armia, Stafford, Little, Mathias and Trouba right now. The latter is expected to change soon with Trouba making his season debut in Arizona if all physical tests go well. This is also a roster reeling from absences but what a difference a few years makes.
Gone are the call-ups like Cormier and other borderline NHL players and in come legitimate depth players like Petan and Dano, both of whom ended up on score sheet. Petan and Dano had solid games as did the other call-up Andrew Copp who had a goal and an assist. What we can see now is the results that the team's patience has had with it's depth resources. It's a refreshing change and something that hopefully continues.
The Jets enter into another road trip today and again it's wondered what kind of performance comes- the one we saw last night or the game from New York? I'd suggest that the team might be trending up right now and as Paul Maurice said 'there's an energy in the room'. That energy will only be helped by the return of Trouba to the lineup. Perhaps these Jets are better than they appear and it sure helps when the goaltending is as good as the play on the ice.