Patrik Laine is still without an NHL contract, four months into a free agency that was supposed to take days. According to a Finnish broadcaster who calls him a friend, one of the teams that got close was the one that drafted him.
Antti Makinen, the NHL play-by-play voice who co-hosts the Viaplay podcast Kimanttia with Kimmo Timonen, said this week that the Winnipeg Jets were in on a Laine return and that none of it made it to the public. He also has a theory about what closed the door.
What Antti Makinen actually said
Makinen said the talks involved a return to where Laine started, and that the Jets “were at that table.” He stressed that he hadn’t asked Laine’s permission to discuss it and that the matter hadn’t been in the media.
Then he offered a guess, and labeled it as one. He pointed to Winnipeg trading Connor Hellebuyck to the New Jersey Devils, a deal that sent what he described as a basketful of forwards the other way, and said he could imagine the Laine conversation ended there. He had not spoken to Laine in a few days.
READ MORE: How to watch the Winnipeg Jets
Why would the Hellebuyck trade change anything for Laine?
Because Winnipeg’s return was mostly forwards, and a team that just added forwards doesn’t need to go shopping for another one.
The Jets sent Hellebuyck east on 23 October and got back Dawson Mercer, Nick Bjugstad, goalie Nico Daws, the rights to unsigned forward Alexander Command, New Jersey’s second-round pick in 2029 and its seventh-rounder in 2027. Hellebuyck had five seasons left at an $8.5 million average annual value, had made his trade request public on 27 August, and had been suspended by the club for not reporting to camp. Kyle Connor’s reaction told you how the room felt about it, and Hellebuyck’s parting message to the city did not land well either.
General manager Kevin Cheveldayoff’s comments on the roster that day were about his goaltending and about the forwards he had just acquired. Free agency did not come up.
The forwards Winnipeg got back
Here is where Makinen’s theory gets thin, because the basket is emptier than it looks.
Mercer is the real addition: 24 years old, the 18th pick in 2020, 20 goals and 42 points in 82 games last season, four assists in 10 games so far this season. Cheveldayoff liked the fit, saying Mercer “fits into this group” and that “him being around a Kyle Connor and being around a Mark Scheifele is really going to help a player like that with his type of game.”
The other two forwards are not available. Bjugstad is 34 and has not played this season after surgery last month on a torn left pectoral muscle, with a recovery estimated at four to six months. Command, the 12th pick in the 2026 draft, is unsigned and playing in Sweden, where he has seven goals in six junior games for Orebro and no points in six SHL appearances.
So the trade that supposedly ended Winnipeg’s interest in a seven-time 20-goal scorer brought back exactly one forward who can dress this week.
$150,000 a month, and still no takers
Whatever happened in Winnipeg, the broader problem is the one Pierre LeBrun laid out on TSN’s Insider Trading on 7 October, and it has not moved since.
“There have been multiple teams calling at multiple times,” LeBrun said. “But no one has been willing to say, ‘Okay we’re going to bite now.'” Because Laine can sign a bonus-heavy deal where the only guaranteed money is his base salary, LeBrun put the price like this: “For about $150,000 a month, you can get a seven-time 20-goal scorer.”
The Calgary Flames have kicked it around internally but want a longer look at their young players. Detroit has talked about it. Seattle was interested early and then ran out of room. Laine’s agent, Andy Scott, says his client is healthy and skating every day, and Laine himself has been doing that in Florida, waiting. The list had been down to five teams at one stage.
This is a player who went second overall to Winnipeg in 2016, scored 44 goals for the Jets in 2017-18, and has 224 goals and 422 points in 537 NHL games. He is coming off a four-year deal worth $34.8 million with an $8.7 million cap hit, and five games for Montreal last season after core muscle surgery in October.
Makinen’s own hope is that the Los Angeles Kings circle back, on the grounds that they need someone who can score. His other point is harder to argue with: at some stage the season gets too long to salvage, and Laine ends up not playing at all.
Read more:
