Fourteen months ago, Patrik Laine was going through a crisis of confidence and wasn't afraid to admit it.
"Feels like hockey is really hard right now," the 20-year-old Jets winger told reporters at the time. "It doesn’t matter if it’s offensively or defensively. Obviously, I don’t have a lot of confidence.”
On Wednesday, in the midst of a stretch of one goal in 10 games and having scored only three times in 18 games since Dec. 1, the Finnish phenom was asked if he had a similar feeling about state of his current game.
"I would probably say the same things," said Laine, who still has a team-leading 24 goals in three 42 games after piling up an astonishing 18 goals in a 12-game period in November.