Quoting: Ktownchef
He's on his second team and has been in the dog house in both places with multiple coaches. When people show you who they are believe them. This move would be a massive mistake imo and one the Canucks don't need to make at this point in the rebuild.
In WPG, he was immature and getting bullied. In CBJ under Torts, he was being forced to play defense, sometimes you just have to let offensive players be offensive players. Worth noting that Torts wasn't just trying to get Laine to be defensively responsible, he was trying to turn him into a two-way force which is a pretty tall ask of a 1-D offensive forward. This year, Laine was committed to trying to improve his value to the team by trying to play C which of course, comes with defensive responsibilities as well, not sure if that experiment ended when he got injured or before that. I'm not sure what Laine is doing wrong now, the coach might just be trying to motivate him to get better, but he's probably going the wrong way about it by benching/healthy scratching Laine since that's not really something he responds well to meaning he doesn't really learn anything from that. That aside, Laine is a proven producer with a career average of 0.81 PPG, only posting lower than that in 3-years: his 3rd year (0.61), the year he was traded to CBJ (0.52), and in his 8th season this year (0.38). Another area of concern is that he does seem to be injury-prone with 2018-19 being the last season that he played a full 82-season (he was healthy for the entire shortened season).
If the Canucks have a need for a sniper like Laine, then they just need to know who they are getting, how to deal with him, and most importantly know how to utilize him. I think it's too early for them to be making moves like this though. They need to see how they measure up against other teams in the post-season and what the team is lacking in terms of playoff hockey.