Why Laine Could Score 40 Goals This Season

Laine is a serious threat on the power-play with his hard, accurate shot that teams don’t seem to know how to stop him from taking. His wrist shot is pretty much as dangerous as anyone in the NHL, not named Alex Ovechkin, on the power-play. With that being said, a healthy Laine could easily score 20 power-play goals (he scored 20 as a teenager back in 2017-18) in 82 games, after putting up 15 in 52 last year. 

The biggest difference we will see in his overall game between last year and this upcoming season will be at 5-on-5. Last season, his knee injury he sustained in the preseason, held Laine back in terms of his skating ability as a whole, which caused him to not be as effective up and down the ice. This year, we will see the Laine that can create space for himself to release his shots at 5-on-5, which will easily result in 10-15 more goals at even-strength than he scored last year.

For Laine, he will always be a bigger threat on the power-play, but he definitely left some goal-scoring skill on the table when playing last season, just trying to get his knee 100% again. We must not forget that Laine was originally supposed to be out the whole season with knee surgery before he got a second opinion to heal the injury naturally. While it definitely allowed Laine to show up and play some decent hockey last year, there was no way he was at 100% for much of the season by doing that method. However, if you watch him skate in Brossard now, that no longer seems like an issue at all when he moves out there.

The third and final but very important reason that Laine could score 40 goals if healthy is the fact that he will be playing with rookie Ivan Demidov, who has the potential to be an elite playmaker as soon as this upcoming season. When watching Laine and Demidov this summer, it’s evident that the chemistry is strong between them as they continue to dominate together during the team’s summer practices. If Demidov can continue to find Laine with the chemistry built this summer, then the Finnish forward will get a lot more chances per game to bury the puck in the net. This will make a big difference compared to being stuck with only Alex Newhook at 5-on-5 for the majority of last season. Now he’ll have a true playmaker to play with.

All-in-all, it finally seems like the right pieces have falling into place for Laine to be among the top goal scorers in the NHL again during the 2025-26 season. He will need to avoid injuries, but there is the possibility that he can make score 40 goals again now that he’s finally 100% heading into a season.

Do you think Laine can find his 40-goal form once again?