Thursday was a historic night for Winnipeg Jets sniper Patrik Laine.
The 20-year-old continues to pile up the records now with 21 goals in just 24 games this season.
Nobody has a hotter stick right now than Laine who leads the NHL in goals after scoring two more in the victory over the Chicago Blackhawks.
“It feels like a lot of my shots are going in,” Laine said.
“And that’s why I’m trying to shoot every time I get the chance, but like I said before, I can still play better hockey. The goals are not always telling the whole story.”
It may not tell the whole story but the records keep falling anyway.
- By scoring his 100th career goal against the Blackhawks, Laine set the new franchise standard for fastest to reach the mark by doing it in only 178 games.
- At 20 years and 224 days, he became the fourth youngest player in NHL history to reach the century mark.
- He tied Ilya Kovalchuk’s team record for fastest to the 20 goal mark, doing it in his 24th game.
- And last but not least, he scored 18 goals in November which is the most goals in a calendar month in the NHL in over 24 years.
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“I guess I was just lucky this month,” Laine said. “We’ll see how it goes in December, but yeah it was a great month.”
And that’s not even counting his five-goal performance last week in becoming the first player to notch five in a game in seven years.
“The run he’s been on, 11 goals in a week, obviously something I’ve never seen,” Jets captain Blake Wheeler said. “He’s the type of guy, you ask him why he’s hasn’t scored a goal in five games, but you know something like that is just around the corner. What a blessing he is to have. Tie game, down a goal, you’re never out of it with a shot like that.”
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Prior to the trip to Finland, Laine was held without a goal for five straight games, so clearly a trip home home was the turning point for the Jets’ phenom.
“I wanted to show everybody back home that I can still be a decent hockey player after the first couple games I had,” he said.
“And I think that kind of gave me the extra motivation for those games, and I’ve been trying to prove to everybody around the world, and around the league that I’m still a pretty good hockey player, and I can still score even though I was struggling.”
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Jets head coach Paul Maurice is in his 21st season coaching in the NHL, and even he admits he’s never seen a player get this hot.
“No, I’ve never seen a guy shoot a puck like this,” Maurice said.
“That shot was there at 18, right. It’s been elite. I’m not sure if it can get better. Maybe he’ll tell you it can. We don’t need his shot to get better, we just need to get him the puck as much as we can in different areas and he’s going to score.”
Laine will get another chance to add to his goal totals when they start a three-game road trip on Saturday against the New Jersey Devils.
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