Once Upon A Time At The World Junior Championship: Patrik Laine

In 2016, Finland was hosting the World Junior Championship and hoping for a great performance from his youngster. Montreal Canadiens-to-be Patrik Laine delivered for his country that year.

The Finns had a near perfect preliminary round, finishing second in Group B, behind the only team it had lost against: Russia. In his first game of the Championship, a 6-0 win over Belarus, the left winger only scored one goal to warm up. Then, in a 6-4 losing effort against Russia, he put up a goal and two assists. He had the same result in his third game, a Finnish win over Slovakia and finished his preliminary round with a goal in a 5-4 win over Czech Republic.

In the quarterfinal, Finland had to take on Canada and in a tight battle, a 6-5 win for the Finns, Laine grabbed another three points. He was then held off the scoresheet in a tough semifinal against Sweden where the Suomi booked its ticket for the final. The gold medal game saw them take on the only country who had beaten them in the tournament; Russia.

In the most important game of his young career, Laine score his country's first goal in the final after Alexander Georgiev kept them off the scoresheet for 40 minutes, tying the game up. Then, the Russian took the lead back just over a minute later, but Laine wasn't done. He was instrumental in Sebastien Aho tying the score just under nine minutes later. The Finns then took a one goal lead, but the Russian came right back and after 60 minutes, it was 3-3. Finland only needed 90 seconds of overtime to seal its 4-3 win and grab the gold medal.

In six games, the second overall pick to be had put up 13 points, the third best performance of the tournament. Four points behind tournament leader Jesse Puljujarvi and a single point behind Sebastian Aho. Puljujarvi was understandably named the tournament MVP, but Laine and fellow Finn defenseman Olli Juolevi joined him on the all-star team completed by Swedish goaltender Linus Soderstrom, and Americans Zach Werenski and first-overal pick to be Auston Matthews.

Laine would go on to win the SM-Liiga championship that season, putting up 15 points in his 18 playoffs games, which led to the Winnipeg Jets selecting him at the following NHL draft, right after the Toronto Maple Leafs had picked Matthews. The big Finn would make the jump to the NHL right away and put up 64 points in 73 games in his rookie season, five points short of Calder Trophy winner Matthews' production.

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