Junior Review: Patrik Laine

[Laine 1,361]

 

Patrik Laine

Right Wing | 6' 5" | 205 lb. | Age: 18 | Tampere, Finland

#29 for the Houston Bulls (VHLM)

 

Patrik Laine grew up in Tampere, Finland and knew he wanted to play professional hockey from a young age. Laine started training from the young age of 3 years old to play hockey. He would constantly be out late at night playing hockey with other boys around his neighbourhood. When Laine reached grade 7, he had to make a choice of either staying in school and getting a regular job or he could focus on playing hockey in his attempts to one day playing the VHL. Laine thought hard about this decision for a couple of months. Laine ended up choosing to drop out of school at the young age of 12 to focus solely on his dream of play professional hockey.

 

Laine started playing with the Tampere U-16 team at the tender age of 13 and put up an astonishing 45 points in 16 games. After that great performance, he was moved up to Tampere's U-18 team where he would proceed to put up 26 points in 27 games and 3 points in 3 playoff games. For each of the next 3 years with the Tampere-U18 team, Laine would average a point per game in each season with the team. Even with this string of impressive years, Laine was still under the radar and wasn't even projected to be a VHLM prospect.

 

However, at the age of 16, Laine would receive a 1-year contract offer from Tappara and he wouldn't waste his chance. in 46 regular season games with Tappara, Laine put up 17 goals, 16 assists and was a +6. In the playoffs, his performances would get better. In 18 playoffs games, Laine would record an astonishing 10 goals, 5 assists and a +1 rating on his way to leading Tappara to a championship. Laine's stock didn't boost that much, but his year was good enough to get him invited to the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship for that year.

 

Laine absolutely went off at the World Juniors, recording 7 goals, 5 assists and a +4 rating in 10 games on his way to being crowned tournament MVP and leading Finland to the gold medal for the second time in 3 years. Despite this, Laine went undrafted in the VHLM draft, but that didn't matter as just a couple of weeks later he would receive offers from multiple VHLM clubs. He decided to sign a 1-year 1.5 Million dollar contract with the Houston Bulls. Laine's goal now is to make it into the VHL, whether it means being drafted or being signed as a UFA.

 

 

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I am a huge fan @PatrikLaine