I say this about nearly ALL Oiler prospects, even Draisaitl (who I was right about).
Puljujaarvi should have spent another year in the FEL, and a full year in the AHL before given spot duty between the AHL / NHL.
Instead what we did, was allow him to get completely shell-shocked in the NHL as an 18 year old, playing barely a handful of minutes between pressbox visits, and sending him down to the AHL for sporatic periods, with recalls that made absolutely zero sense (4 games? WTF?).
Then we bring him up to the big club just to be shell-shocked and sit in the press-box.
He needs to piece together both his game, and his confidence while learning to grow into his massive man-body. Something he was doing quite nicely in the AHL in a winning environment.
Unfortunately next season he will be waiver eligible, so we pretty much screwed his development window already. I really doubt he passes through waivers.
Thing is, Puljujaarvi never had a dominant season in Karpat either. His numbers (while decent for an underager) wasn't great. He never got to dominate the FEL in his overage year like Aho did.
Oilers did what they did with every other rookie they ruined (or nearly ruined).
Kept him up on the big club to completely shatter all their confidence, while they look for cheats and shortcuts to stay afloat, rather than learning to grow and think the game the proper way.
In Draisaitl's first year, he was being destroyed on the Oilers. In 37 games he had 2 goals and 9 points. When he was mercifully sent back to Junior he was mediocre for the first few games before regaining his mojo, and dominating that league enroute to a Memorial Cup MVP performance.
