Patrik Laine is still sitting out there on the market, and according to Bolavip's reporting, four teams have some level of interest in the big Finnish winger. Four teams. For a guy who once scored 44 goals as a 19-year-old in Winnipeg.

Let that sit for a second.

I've told this story before, but it bears repeating. The kid arrived in 2016 with a shot that goalies described the way pitchers describe a nasty slider, unfair and coming whether you were ready or not. He potted 36 as a rookie, 44 in his second season, and half the league's scouting departments had him penciled in as a future 50-goal man. The comparisons to Alex Ovechkin weren't lazy, they were obvious. Big body, left-handed cannon, a winger who could change a game with one release.

And then the road bent. The trade to Columbus in the Dubois deal, the injuries, the personal leave that took more guts to take than anything he ever did on the ice, the stops in Montreal and wherever the winds have blown him since. The scoring touch never fully left. The consistency did. And in a league where every front office wants a sure thing, a maybe with a price tag is a hard sell.

Hence the slow market. This hasn't exactly been a scorching free agency period league-wide, with a lot of general managers standing pat, waiting for camp cuts and cap space to shake loose. Laine is the kind of player who benefits from a fast market, where a GM talks himself into the ceiling instead of staring at the floor. When the market crawls, the caution wins.

But somebody's going to sign him. And I'd bet on it working out better than the peanut gallery expects.

My take on Laine is the same one I gave about reclaiming project hitters at the baseball deadline: the talent doesn't expire just because the situation did. Shooting talent is the most stubborn skill in hockey. Guys lose a step, lose their penalty kill value, lose their matchups. They don't lose the release. Laine at even strength and Laine on a power play with a legitimate playmaking center are two different players, and whichever of these four teams can slot him next to a feeder is buying 30 goals for maybe 60 cents on the dollar.

The fit matters more than the money here. Put him on a veteran club with a strong room and a coach who'll live with the defensive warts, and you might catch lightning. Put him somewhere he has to carry a locker room, and you've seen that movie before. The four-team number tells you GMs know this too; nobody's rushing, everybody's doing their homework on the person as much as the player. That's the right way to do it.

Watch the cap-strapped contenders here. A team a million dollars under the ceiling with a bottom-six hole and a PP2 that can't gain the zone is exactly the kind of club that talks itself into Laine on a one-year prove-it deal. Those are the quiet signings that decide playoff series in April, and you know how I feel about the quiet ones. The good general managers earn their money there.

The clock's ticking on training camps. Four teams have called. It only takes one to believe.

And if that one team gets the 2018 version of the shot for even half a season, the other three are going to spend next summer explaining why they didn't.