Laine is Prolific on the Power Play

Patrik Laine was always a weapon on the power play. But he’s on the best run of power play goals in his career. Brayden Point leads the Tampa Bay Lightning in power-play goals with 12 and that leads the league. He’s done that in 39 games. That’s good. But what Laine is doing is ridiculous.

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Laine has 10 in 18 games. That’s crazy. If this was some unproven player I wouldn’t be writing about it. But Laine has always had the talent. Nobody gets all their power play goals alone so his teammates deserve a fair amount of credit too.

The record for power play goals in a season is 34. Tim Kerr set that record in 1985-86 while playing for the Philadelphia Flyers. He did it in 76 games. Laine isn’t going to get that record. So I searched for something comparable and Mario Lemieux popped up. In 1995-96, he played in 70 games and had 31 power-play goals. That ranks fourth all-time. With 36 games left and assuming Laine played in them all, he has a chance to get to 31, but he would have to do a bit better. They are all crazy thoughts.

I think he will end up with approximately 27. If he does that he would tie seven other players including Phil Esposito, who did it twice with the Boston Bruins. Esposito did it in 76 games in one of those seasons. If Laine were to do it, it would be in 54 games. That could be an NHL record for power play goals per game but I can’t find that statistic online so the NHL would have to help me out with that one.