Sykie
01-01-2004, 10:06 AM
I just come back from the Spengler Cup, where I saw Teemu Laine play with the Jokerit Helsinki. As a Devil fan, it’s obvious when Helsinki was playing, I was especially watching our prospect Teemu, who was playing on the third line of his team. The coach was probably trying some things as he stated in some papers that the results of the game weren’t his priority goal.
What is the Spengler Cup ? It’s a tournament hosted by the HC Davos, where five teams fight for the Trophy. Davos and Team Canada are a lock, and three teams are invited. There is at least one from Scandinavia, and one from Eastern Europe. It’s interesting because you can see a wide open game, with speedy players. And you can see some future NHLers. Now let’s come back to Laine, here is my constatations.
The good.
He was aware defensivly, and showed a physical touch in his game. He didn’t hesitate to throw his body around, and was even sometime the most physical player on the ice. In fact, he is making some progress here and maybe he wanted to show it because a lot of scouts are watching the Spengler Cup.
Sometime you heard some guys in the public saying “who is this guy” as he checked somebody out there. I didn’t expected as much physical play from Laine but from this point of view he was impressive and show both physical play and heart. Other example, he didn’t hesitate to throw his body to stop shoots from the blue line. A solid player.
Offensivly, I’ll talk about this later but one of the only time he had the puck on an offensive situation, he made a very simple and perfect play to set up a Koivisto goal. Unfortunatly, this kind of things was very rare.
The bad.
He has a tendency to float out there, and he seems to read the game a little slowly. As a result, he is often late when he is needed by his teammates. It gives you a strange and disapointing feeling, that Laine could be a dominant player if only he could read the game faster.
The worst thing is that when he is late on the game, it wastes his speed. You can have all the speed you want, if the other player is already gone when you understand the game, your speed will not save you.
The ugly.
Teemu Laine showed ZERO offensive flair. Everytime he enters the zone with the puck, he shoots it from the blue line and quite frankly his shoot isn’t great. And if he doesn’t shoot, he dumps it. I really hope it was simply a line instruction because it is really scary.
As a matter of fact he produced absolutly nothing during the tournament and it’s deceving because as I stated above, when he had a play, he made the right decision to set-up a teammate goal. If only we could see that more often.
Overall...
Laine played a good tournament. Still, he must progress if he wants to earn his ticket for America just like Pihlman did. He’s got a lot of things to learn but his good showing at the tournament could help him to earn more IT with Jokerit later in the season. And who knows, if he keeps it up, maybe he’ll come over next year.
In and all, there is upside in his game. I would say he can be a usefull third line player one day for the Devils, but I don’t see him as a scorer. I hope he will prove me wrong but chances are slim.
Other than Laine...
Davos and Team Canada was the better teams. You could easily see that these teams would make it to the final, and only the Russian Team (Jaroslav) seemed able to change that. Helsinki was deceving, and Krefeld (a German team), while by far the weakest team of the tournament, showed some good things.
Canada won over Davos in the final. A big mistake at the beginning of the third period by Coyote prospect Beat Forster was the turning point of the game as Canada took a 5-3 advantage. Paul Di Pietro was the player of the game, and the player of the tournament was Oleg Petrov (he played with Davos).
Team Canada was a team mixed with the Canadian players in Switzerland (for the most part a lot of ex-NHLers like Domenichelli or Ward), and with young players like Brendan Bell or Jamie Hodson. Overall it was good team, the players was proud to represent their country.
Remember him ?
I was especially impressed with the play of a young guy named... Anton But. Remember that name ? He was drafted by the Devils, and was trade along with Boumedienne and Goc for Andreï Zyuzin. Anton is playing with Jaroslav and wow, he’s got talent. Time will tell, but But has potential as a goal-scorer. Nepryayev, from Washington, has excellent talent too. These two guys are earning a lot of IT with Jaroslav.
What is the Spengler Cup ? It’s a tournament hosted by the HC Davos, where five teams fight for the Trophy. Davos and Team Canada are a lock, and three teams are invited. There is at least one from Scandinavia, and one from Eastern Europe. It’s interesting because you can see a wide open game, with speedy players. And you can see some future NHLers. Now let’s come back to Laine, here is my constatations.
The good.
He was aware defensivly, and showed a physical touch in his game. He didn’t hesitate to throw his body around, and was even sometime the most physical player on the ice. In fact, he is making some progress here and maybe he wanted to show it because a lot of scouts are watching the Spengler Cup.
Sometime you heard some guys in the public saying “who is this guy” as he checked somebody out there. I didn’t expected as much physical play from Laine but from this point of view he was impressive and show both physical play and heart. Other example, he didn’t hesitate to throw his body to stop shoots from the blue line. A solid player.
Offensivly, I’ll talk about this later but one of the only time he had the puck on an offensive situation, he made a very simple and perfect play to set up a Koivisto goal. Unfortunatly, this kind of things was very rare.
The bad.
He has a tendency to float out there, and he seems to read the game a little slowly. As a result, he is often late when he is needed by his teammates. It gives you a strange and disapointing feeling, that Laine could be a dominant player if only he could read the game faster.
The worst thing is that when he is late on the game, it wastes his speed. You can have all the speed you want, if the other player is already gone when you understand the game, your speed will not save you.
The ugly.
Teemu Laine showed ZERO offensive flair. Everytime he enters the zone with the puck, he shoots it from the blue line and quite frankly his shoot isn’t great. And if he doesn’t shoot, he dumps it. I really hope it was simply a line instruction because it is really scary.
As a matter of fact he produced absolutly nothing during the tournament and it’s deceving because as I stated above, when he had a play, he made the right decision to set-up a teammate goal. If only we could see that more often.
Overall...
Laine played a good tournament. Still, he must progress if he wants to earn his ticket for America just like Pihlman did. He’s got a lot of things to learn but his good showing at the tournament could help him to earn more IT with Jokerit later in the season. And who knows, if he keeps it up, maybe he’ll come over next year.
In and all, there is upside in his game. I would say he can be a usefull third line player one day for the Devils, but I don’t see him as a scorer. I hope he will prove me wrong but chances are slim.
Other than Laine...
Davos and Team Canada was the better teams. You could easily see that these teams would make it to the final, and only the Russian Team (Jaroslav) seemed able to change that. Helsinki was deceving, and Krefeld (a German team), while by far the weakest team of the tournament, showed some good things.
Canada won over Davos in the final. A big mistake at the beginning of the third period by Coyote prospect Beat Forster was the turning point of the game as Canada took a 5-3 advantage. Paul Di Pietro was the player of the game, and the player of the tournament was Oleg Petrov (he played with Davos).
Team Canada was a team mixed with the Canadian players in Switzerland (for the most part a lot of ex-NHLers like Domenichelli or Ward), and with young players like Brendan Bell or Jamie Hodson. Overall it was good team, the players was proud to represent their country.
Remember him ?
I was especially impressed with the play of a young guy named... Anton But. Remember that name ? He was drafted by the Devils, and was trade along with Boumedienne and Goc for Andreï Zyuzin. Anton is playing with Jaroslav and wow, he’s got talent. Time will tell, but But has potential as a goal-scorer. Nepryayev, from Washington, has excellent talent too. These two guys are earning a lot of IT with Jaroslav.