Habs Daily: Manufactured Laine Drama, Demidov Top Prospect

Here are the Montreal Canadiens news items, highlights, and stories you may have missed on Tuesday.

Montreal Canadiens News

There was some drama at the 4 Nations Faceoff tournament yesterday. Or to be more precise, some outlets attempted to produce some contrived drama by cutting out part of Patrik Laine’s comments, which discussed the lowered ice time in recent outings.

If you were to take the malicious edits at face value, it would seem that he is throwing shade toward head coach Martin St-Louis. Hell, some tweets from mainstream outlets suggested as much in the title, while providing only part of the quote.

Here is the full quote, which you can also verify on the Canadiens website.

Patrik Laine today on his decreased ice time recently with the Habs:

“Do I wish to be out there more? Absolutely. Who doesn’t? Also, I don’t wanna get into that too much. When you’re out there for 10 mins, I guess it’s hard when you’re used to playing more. You’re not in the… pic.twitter.com/D56vsHOlIa

— /r/Habs (@HabsOnReddit) February 12, 2025

“Do I wish to be out there more? Absolutely. Who doesn’t? Also, I don’t want to get into that too much. When you’re out there for 10 minutes, I guess it’s hard when you’re used to playing more. You’re not in the rhythm & all that. But you still gotta try to be out there & do your best.”

“Obviously, I haven’t been able to perform like I probably should. So I understand why I haven’t been playing as much as maybe normally.”

“At that point, you gotta take a look in the mirror as well. You just gotta put in the work & gotta make things happen. Sometimes, it is a little tough. But I feel like now, this will be a good turning point to get confidence back & get some boost for the rest of the year.”

Laine is clearly disappointed with his play of late, and if we’re being perfectly honest, we all knew it would take him a lot of time to find his rhythm, and the early goals on the powerplay distorted people’s perception of his form.

Given that Laine has been extremely open about mental health struggles, not to mention his struggles on the ice, it’s incredibly deceitful and unprofessional to twist the narrative against him.

However, since this is Montreal, it’s far from surprising.

The 4 Nations tournament gets underway later today. Laine, who practiced on the powerplay, as well as Joel Armia will represent Finland, while Samuel Montembeault is set to wear the Canadian maple leaf.

C’est ce qui conclut le jour 2 de la Confrontation des 4 Nations 🇨🇦🇫🇮

That’s a wrap for Day 2 at the #4Nations Face-Off#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/Vkcm5i167d

— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) February 12, 2025

I have to say, those Finland jerseys are gorgeous

Tätä on odotettu! #92 #4Nations Face-Off pic.twitter.com/NDADxRrMqo

— NHL Suomi (@NHL_fi) February 11, 2025

Scott Wheeler over at The Athletic ranked Montreal Canadiens phenom Ivan Demidov as the top ranked drafted hockey prospect, confirming what Craig Button had suggested at TSN last week. Scott is one of the few people who takes the required time and effort to properly analyze prospects, and despite some criticism from fans who are upset that their team or player is usually toward the bottom of the standings, I’d argue he’s the least biased and most professional prospect writer in the hockey landscape.

His excellent work speaks for itself.

My annual top 100 drafted NHL prospects ranking is out at @TheAthletic!

Featuring nearly 50,000 words of analysis, player tiers, and more, all packaged in our sleek and sortable user interface.

The full list:https://t.co/MjnM7ENzWv pic.twitter.com/ePl1iZmdcu

— Scott Wheeler (@scottcwheeler) February 11, 2025