#sorry y’all but my first ever fav was ryan miller. mr ‘i just wanna say what a pos lucic is’

[brockachu]

hm hm fucked around and got emo about pate laine so i wrote out the whole narrative for bucky to explain why i’m so invested in his success + wouldn’t shut up about seeing him score. under the cut, of course

ok so like — patrik/pate/patty laine. everyone knows him as the sharpshooter with the funky personal style, right? despite that, he’s actually a soft-spoken, kinda shy kid who mostly keeps to himself. he just Really likes clothes/fashion & personal style.

he’s this big, tall weedy dude. he started his hockey career as a goalie (that tracks so much with the personality), but his dad convinced him to switch to forward in middle school. he debuted in finland’s top league at only age 16. he was ranked really high in draft projections & played super well at the 2015 WJC, and ultimately got drafted 2nd overall in 2016 by the jets.

while the finnish Liiga is a really high level pro league, his lack of north american experience drew quick scrutiny in such a small but high pressure market as winnipeg. add his reclusiveness, awkwardness in english, & the very different outward appearance ‘for a hockey player’. plus some partially founded streakiness with scoring that earned him a reputation for a ‘difficult personality’ (i for one think pinning a player for streakiness says you have a lack of depth scoring that makes you over-depend on certain talents which then also creates a tougher environment to work in, but hey, i’m biased).

point is — the jets market was hard on him year in & year out and he was Always on trade rumor lists (boy why are so many of my favs treated like this), until finally last season, they traded him to columbus.

just prior to that, he had been recovering from a wrist injury that contributed to a severely hole-ridden jets roster in the 2020 playoff bubble. he played the first game of the 2021 half-season with the jets then was traded while on ir for another injury (speculation was that he also had never quite gotten 100% on the wrist).

when pate arrived in cbj, torts was still the head coach. torts & his coaching team are of course known for being ‘tough love’, which as you can imagine is not pate’s jam, especially when he finally got out from under the winnipeg microscope. most notably at one point he got in a recorded argument with an assistant coach on the bench mid-game & was sat the rest of the game. he gets a little quieter after that game but ultimately still plays his game & does moderately ok (it was a slump season for him, but a lot of commentary has since given him some grace between the trade, the coaching staff, the tumult of the cbj roster overall, & the fact we never really cleared up when he was 100% back from injury). at the end of the season, torts finally gets fired, cbj make a bunch of moves that essentially blows up the roster to emphasize the babies, & pate signs a one year extension to remain a cbj. the presumption is that he’s giving the team another year to prove he fits here & to pay him handily. otherwise, he’ll be a ufa for the first time in summer 2022. (he is for the record still only 23 years old)

to open this season (21-22), he seemed to be doing really well — he came in healthy, started with 10pts in 9 games. and then he had a muscle strain that put him out for 6 weeks. and while recovering from that, it was reported that a family emergency occurred that would require him to go back to finland — turns out his father had died suddenly & unexpectedly.

this goes back to pate actually being a shy dude who keeps to himself — he’s really close with his family & he used to say his best friends were his dad & sasha barkov (florida panther who pate grew up playing with in finland). pate has requested minimal media coverage about his father’s death & only really addressed it in one press conference when he returned from injury at the end of december.

while i’ve seen him express emotion before in interviews, mostly frustration or impatience or dry amusement with the press, this was the first time i’ve seen him just holding back tears, voice rough, hood up, exhausted. in a fucked up way, it’s also the kindest i’ve ever seen him treated by the press corps. i cannot state enough how often he has been called a diva, a flop, a bust, stand-offish, inconsistent, & just any number of things to imply his personality is ‘bad’ and the core problem of any team ‘failures’ around him.

we later found out from pate’s own admission that his father was in hospital and missed his last game before going on ir — that was the only of his games pate’s dad never watched.

in the time since, he’s scored 31pts in 26 games, including a recent 11-game point streak in late january through february. in that time he had 3 consecutive games with 2 goals (2 of those games were back to backs) and one hattrick. and he is now on a 5-game point streak.

so yeah that’s pate and at least lightly why i’d commit minor crimes for him.

((caveats: this skims over his stuff w/ finnish press bc i kinda forgot at the time i drafted the rant + that was part was in the winnipeg part of the timeline. i am aware he has been contentious to outright petty in finnish about the jets org. any long-time followers also know i love a bitch, so you’re not gonna see me pressed bout a less than graceful 21-year-old foreign pro athlete who was heavily scrutinized by a well-known harsh canadian hockey market. i also laugh when petey snipes van media or millsy snidely references fanbase controversies. 🤷🏻‍♀️ yes, i also know about the irresponsible driving. it sucks & i don’t condone it.))

#aily talks #patrik laine #sorry y’all but my first ever fav was ryan miller. mr ‘i just wanna say what a pos lucic is’ #if you don’t think i will fully adopt a mean lil man you do not know me #narratives