Player Discussion Jesse Puljujärvi 4th Overall 2016 Draft. Part IV

[Mr Positive]

One thing that keeps popping into my head about Pulju is please develop this guy properly. The team finally has the luxury to take any amount of time needed to max out his potential. This may be unfair, but I see a lot of Paajarvi in this scenario. Having the size and tools to make an NHL team at an early age only to have it be a detriment to their overall development. Could just be tank syndrome talking.

Imo everything we've done with JP has been to serve his development, even at the expense of our NHL team. His development is just that important.

That might seem off because we forced him in the NHL at first, but NHL time is by far the best experience a player like him can get. People were saying it was bad that he wasn't playing all the time, but he was still playing the exact same as he would have in the AHL, which is a league with a shorter season.

It's not only good for JP to get NHL time to play with NHL players and against opposition, but it's good for his motivation and confidence.

I do think Chiarelli is viewing Drai's development as the perfect model, and so far JP's is taking the same developmental model. That doesn't mean that JP will continue down Drai's path. If JP doesn't take the same step forward that Drai did, then I'm sure he'll get sent to the AHL again after some NHL experience.

NHL experience is only damaging to the player and the team when it's too much. Puljujarvi got a taste of the NHL, but got to back off of it and focus on his development in the AHL. The team had endure JP's learning curve, but he was gone when the games started to matter the most.

 

[GameChanger]

I will just answer to you with some facts here:

Laine first 10 games: 6+2=8

Pulju first 10 games: 1+2=3

Laine clearly more goals and points.

Laine first 15 games: 11+5=16

Pulju first 15 games: 1+4=5

I wasn't talking about the start of the season, but I guess I could've been clearer with my words. Yes, after difficult practise games Laine started the season extremely well, at least goal-wise. But after a while there was a period of 10-15 rounds when Pulju played some of his best hockey and Laine worst.

I give a stupid impression of myself with this, but I'm writing this one more time: At that time Pulju's ppg/60 was actually better, his corsi was the best of the team (while Laine's last of the NHL at his worst), +- was much better, the actual scores were higher during that period, and Laine even cost some goals with his mistakes (one against the Oilers during that time). All I'm saying is that there really was a period of 10-15 games when Jesse was doing better. But almost every other period was the opposite.

Sorry everyone, mine and Ippenators "arguments" must be boring to read, I'll try to leave it now.

 

[Ippenator]

I wasn't talking about the start of the season, but I guess I could've been clearer with my words. Yes, after difficult practise games Laine started the season extremely well, at least goal-wise. But after a while there was a period of 10-15 rounds when Pulju played some of his best hockey and Laine worst.

I give a stupid impression of myself with this, but I'm writing this one more time: At that time Pulju's ppg/60 was actually better, his corsi was the best of the team (while Laine's last of the NHL at his worst), +- was much better, the actual scores were higher during that period, and Laine even cost some goals with his mistakes (one against the Oilers during that time). All I'm saying is that there really was a period of 10-15 games when Jesse was doing better. But almost every other period was the opposite.

Sorry everyone, mine and Ippenators "arguments" must be boring to read, I'll try to leave it now.

First of all, it's a really lame thing to do to apologize on the behalf of another poster. Yes, I saw what you were doing there, and please don't do that again.

Lets still go through their point production on a monthly basis (easier way to get the quickest reliable comparable data):


October:

Laine 6+2=8, played games 9, +/- 0

Pulju 1+1=2, played games 7, +/- 0


November:

Laine 7+4=11, played games 16, +/- 0

Pulju 0+5=5, played games 13, +/- +4


December:

Laine 6+6=12, played games 14, +/- +4

Pulju 0+1=1, played games 6, +/- +1


January:

Laine 4+6=10, played games 7, +/- +4

Pulju 0+0=0, played games 2, +/- 0


After this Pulju was sent to Bakersfield, so there is nothing to compare between them in the NHL after that.

As we can see Laine blew Pulju out of the water every single month with goals, points and PPG ratio. Only in November Pulju had a better +/- record than Laine but even then he lost the scoring race clearly with 0+5=5 against Laine's 7+4=11. Ok Laine played 3 games more than Pulju that month, because of the crazy autumn schedule that the Jets had. Even in November Laine had almost twice as good points per game stats as Pulju had, so no question whom had the clearly statistically better month even then. And November was by a mile the most productive month for Pulju's whole NHL season.

So can you please, instead of just throwing some nonsense from the top of your head, just really point out when was it when Pulju was clearly statistically ahead of Laine? I'm trying all kinds of mental gymnastics and cherry picking, and I can't really get that kind of a result. Don't bother to try proving anything with Corsi or any other advanced stats, as we anyway know how they scored goals and points for the rest of the season. Corsi has no meaning at all, if we have the already happened goals and points data. Anyway I don't give much meaning to the advanced stats, as the game of hockey is about scoring goals and preventing the opponent from scoring them. If you have data on the most essential things, you don't need any other data after all.

 

[GameChanger]

Imo everything we've done with JP has been to serve his development, even at the expense of our NHL team. His development is just that important.

What worries me a bit is the comments that Pulju was expected to concentrate on the defensive side of the game in the AHL, while most writers here thought the defensive side already was very good for such a young player. A and many others felt the offensive side was where he needed work to fulfill his potential one day.

Also Jesse did say in some interview (though I can't remember the exact words) he felt a bit lost with the instructions or more so with the lack of them. There was talk about the Finnish team's head coach Marjamäki's words, in which the "consensus" was that there might have been nothing strange about. However, I read another interview which made it clear Pulju wasn't insructed in the perfect way and he didn't quite know what he was ecpected to develop. I hope Jokinen and hopefully a place in the Oilers will help with this, along with his better language skills.

Another thing I also noticed and wrote about was that while Jesse was known to be able to play extra long shifts this year it was often the opposite. The extra weight might explain this.

 

[GameChanger]

First of all, it's a really lame thing to do to apologize on the behalf of another poster. Yes, I saw what you were doing there, and please don't do that again.

It's not the first time you are accusing me of something I didn't mean to do. Last time I apologized twice, but you never even commented on them or accepted them. And you saw me wrong in this one. We have been "arguing" a few times so simply apologized the arguments and did include myself as well, but I managed to say it wrong again I guess.

The perioid I was talking about was probably between the end of October and start of November, but it doesn't really matter. Even though Pulju's points/60 really was okay at that time, his total points (and the ice time too) were so low we have to wait until next year to know more.

With all respect, our discussions are not fun for either of us (I don't mean this personally, I'm sure you are a good guy) so I'm leaving this here.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

New thread is up.