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“Patrik Laine is more likely to replace Nikolaj Ehlers than to play with him”
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“Patrik Laine is more likely to replace Nikolaj Ehlers than to play with him”
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Nikolaj Ehlers is one of the most talked-about names in Montreal these days. The Jets’ forward, who is due to hit the independent market in a month’s time, will be one of the big names on the market… and Montreal is a destination that keeps coming up in his case.

The reason? He’s good friends with Patrik Laine, who might try to convince him to join the Habs.

For a club looking for offensive punch like the Habs, a guy like Ehlers is one of the options the club should consider. He’d cost nothing in assets (unlike a player who’d be acquired via trade), and even though he’d cost a lot in money, he’s proven he’s capable of producing offensively in the NHL.

That said, all of this isn’t necessarily unanimous either… and in the most recent episode of The Basu & Godin Notebook, we understand that Arpon Basu doesn’t really see the fit… and more importantly, that he seriously doubts a world in which Ehlers and Laine will play together in Montreal in the fall:

Patrik Laine is more likely to replace Nikolaj Ehlers in Winnipeg than to play with him in Montreal. – Arpon Basu

And that’s an interesting sentence in that Basu raises a good point: what is the Jets’ contingency plan in the (increasingly likely) event of Ehlers leaving Winnipeg?

Basu notes that Ehlers plays very little 5-on-5 with the Jets. In fact, seven forwards got more playing time than Ehlers at 5-on-5 with the Jets last year, so he’s mostly used as a powerplay specialist.

And that’s just as well, because that’s Patrik Laine’s bread and butter.

We don’t know if Laine, who ended up in Winnipeg , would agree to go back there, and his no-trade clause means he’ll have a say in all this. But in a world where the Jets are letting Ehlers go, maybe picking up a guy like Laine would make sense.

We know that over there, the third line (Adam Lowry’s) plays a lot, which makes it easier to “hide” a player like Laine in the line-up and deploy him mostly with the man advantage. And if the Habs are willing to withhold 50% of Laine’s salary, who knows if the Jets wouldn’t be interested in bringing him back at a rather modest cap hit of $4.35 million.

Obviously, this scenario is unlikely… but it does show that we shouldn’t necessarily expect Ehlers to land in Montreal. And if he does, it won’t be because a player who is likely to have left Montreal within the next 13 months convinced him to come here.

Especially as that player may already have played his last game in town…


Overtime

– Well deserved.

– PSG win the Champions League.

– Very cool.

– Worrying, all that.

– Lance Stroll will miss the Spanish Grand Prix. His bike accident a few weeks ago has unfortunately left its mark.

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