Player Discussion Jesse Puljujärvi 4th Overall 2016 Draft. Part V: Called Up 11/10/17

[A91]

Might be for the best as I've said though, if we could get him signed to a 3-4 year deal in the 3-4 mill range after next season ... we can't afford another guy asking for 6+ if he really breaks out next year.

See, theres a tradeoff

1) Have him be average, a 20-20 guy, likely means our team stays average but we pay him less
2) Have him emerge as a star, pay him big bucks, likely means he improves our offense and thus our team in a huge way. This means we pay him a lot more.

I have no clue why so many want option 1 with Pulju. The goal is for him to be star game-driving winger, if that means we have to pay him more so be it. Just means Chia and co have their work cut out for them in the offseason. With contracts like Sekera, Lucic and Russel dump one and vwala we have a solution.

This would be like Caps fans with OV, Backstrom and Oshie saying they hope Kuznetsov is average so they can pay him less.
Instead he broke out and after a few seasons was a major reason to their success and a key player. Now when the cap crunch came they traded a sweetner asset in Grubauer to rid themselves of a bad contract.

For arguments sake, what would you rather prefer?
1) 40 point verage Pulju +expensive bottom pairing Russel + sweetner like Bear
2) 80 point Pulju + cheap bottom pairing guy

I know which choice I make.

 

[Soundwave]

See, theres a tradeoff

1) Have him be average, a 20-20 guy, likely means our team stays average but we pay him less
2) Have him emerge as a star, pay him big bucks, likely means he improves our offense and thus our team in a huge way. This means we pay him a lot more.

I have no clue why so many want option 1 with Pulju. The goal is for him to be star game-driving winger, if that means we have to pay him more so be it. Just means Chia and co have their work cut out for them in the offseason. With contracts like Sekera, Lucic and Russel dump one and vwala we have a solution.

This would be like Caps fans with OV, Backstrom and Oshie saying they hope Kuznetsov is average so they can pay him less.
Instead he broke out and after a few seasons was a major reason to their success and a key player. Now when the cap crunch came they traded a sweetner asset in Grubauer to rid themselves of a bad contract.

For arguments sake, what would you rather prefer?
1) 40 point verage Pulju +expensive bottom pairing Russel + sweetner like Bear
2) 80 point Pulju + cheap bottom pairing guy

I know which choice I make.

Obviously you'd rather have the 80 point Puljujarvi, that said I don't think that's obviously realistic at this stage.

He needs to bring 40 points to the table next year though minimum.

 

[McFlyingV]

I'm drooling at the thought of a McDavid, Drai, Nuge, Puljujarvi, Bouchard PP over the next couple years. Two big RH shots for McDavid to set up and a true PP QB, with two other high quality playmakers in Nuge and Drai.

 

[PulYou]

Just had to repost this. To me poster calling himself Wilde has done some excellent job on analysing Pulju. This is from Lowetide's blog:

"WILDE says:

• July 3, 2018 at 8:49 pm
  ** BIG BOY POST ALERT **
  …
  We’re talking about 98, are we?!
  Here’s a post I wrote on 2018 draft day that went the way of the wind:
  
  Update on Puljujarvi:
  – He’s apparently training hard already, pushing numbers on bench(lol) and squat
  – Enjoying being able to train without injury unlike last couple summers
  – playing with Karpat once a week
  – good to be closer to home, but is working hard on his English because he felt he couldn’t be a
• good teammate and friend because of his poor English this year
  – all of this translation credited to Twitter user @kulta64
  …
  Now, I’ve been linking the latest published passing project data intermittently, and I took a look at Puljujarvi’s, here’s the link to the project:
  Tableau Public
  Highlights:
  – 81st percentile expected primary points per 60
  – 81st percentile shot assists from across the slot or behind the net
  – 72nd percentile expected assists per 60
  – 81st percentile expected goals per 60
  – 79th percentile one-timer shots per 60
  Lowlights:
  – 28th percentile involvement in the shots that occur when he’s on the ice
  – 37th percentile shot assists per 60
  My takeaways here is that we have a fantastically talented young individual with good character and it’s real f***in’ sad the way he’s been treated thus far.
  If we don’t trade him, though, we’ll forget about it when he’s a monster two-way force for a decade.
  These metrics kind of fly in the face of Jesse’s shot quality problem, I think the problem is finishing as one of the youngest NHLers. He’s getting to the spots, he’s getting the shot off, but he’s not finding twine. It’s part confidence, it’s part literally being 20. We saw this with Yamamoto. If he cashed on his dangerous chances at a reasonable rate he would have had 5 goals in his 9 games.
  When a player is old and has this problem, they just don’t have it anymore. Like how Cammaleri did a lot of things right, but it just didn’t go in the net anymore.
  When a player is young and has this problem, they just don’t have it YET.
  But they will, both of them… I’m confident.
  Please, for the love of god, keep these two guys and keep the 10th overall. A team with 97 on it shouldn’t /have/ elite prospects, but because of the injuries in 2015-16, and the size-based dismissal of a top 10 talent in 2017, and the man comin’ around in 2018, here we are: we have a mulligan.
  It won’t, in all likelihood, be another chance at a McDavid+Barzal+Hall team, but it is something… unless you rip the seeds from the soil once again.
  Get it right Pete, get it right Daryl, get it right Craig, and Godspeed, Keith.
  —————————————-
  I’ve also been meaning to talk about JP’s offensive potential for awhile.
  I’m of the belief that elite offensive capabilities show early. The only thing stopping the train is injuries.
  There’s been points made about the lack of offense in Pulju’s 17 year old season in Liiga, I have time for them. But I like getting the full year-to-year projection from when players are ~15. Jesse’s numbers are absolutely remarkable, playing up-age sooner and outproducing a lot of elite NHL Finns.
  Here’s Jesse:
  age –
  14 – 51pts in 42 GP – Jr U18
  15 – 23pts in 18 GP – Jr U20
  16 – 18pts in 11 GP – Jr U20
  / / – 13pts in 15GP – Mestis
  / / – 11pts in 21GP – Liiga
  17 – 28pts in 50GP – Liiga
  …
  Now, for comparable Finns, I’ll be putting all of their age – league seasons in order.
  Players are put in years by the age they are before the 2nd half of the season.
  So a player born in ’97 is in the ’15’ category, no matter the month… this means some guys have pretty big age differences, but I tried to grab guys within a few months of JP’s May birthday. Here’s their birth months, and in brackets a + or a – indicating whether or not their stats deserve a boost or a reduction because they were younger or older than the other guys:
  Puljujarvi – May ( = )
  Laine – April (= )
  Granlund – Feb ( – )
  Tolvanen – Apr ( = )
  Kotkaniemi – Jul ( = )
  Aho – Jul ( = )
  Teravainen – Sept ( + )
  Rantanen – Oct ( + )
  14 year olds in U18 league:
  Jesse Puljujarvi – 51pts in 42 GP
  Patrik Laine – 26pts in 27 GP
  (That’s literally it. Those two.)
  …
  15 year olds in the U18 league:
  Eeli Tolvanen – 84pts in 41 GP
  Mikael Granlund – 40pts in 22 GP
  Jesse Puljujarvi – 14 pts in 8 GP
  Mikko Rantanen – 13pts in 22GP
  Teuvo Teravainen – 26pts in 22GP
  Sebastian Aho – 60pts in 38 GP
  …
  15 year olds in the U20 League (This is basically Finnish exceptional status IMO)
  Jesse Puljujarvi – 23pts in 18 GP <– Excuse me?!
  Patrik Laine – 37pts in 40 GP
  Jesperi Kotkaniemi – 15pts in 33 GP
  Eeli Tolvanen – 5pts in 7 GP
  Sebastian Aho – 4pts in 5 GP
  …
  16 year olds in the U20 League:
  Jesse Puljujarvi – 18pts in 11 GP
  Mikael Granlund – 57pts in 35 GP
  Teuvo Teravainen – 20pts in 26 GP
  Sebastian Aho – 59pts in 44 GP
  Jesperi Kotkaniemi – 15pts in 17 GP
  …
  16 year olds in the Mestis:
  Jesse Puljujarvi – 13pts in 15 GP
  Patrik Laine – 12pts in 36 GP
  Mikael Granlund – 7pts in 6 GP
  …
  17 year olds in the Liiga:
  Jesse Puljujarvi – 11pts in 21 GP
  BONUS APPEARANCE:
  Aleksander Barkov – 16pts in 32 GP
  Mikko Rantanen – 3pts in 15 GP
  Patrik Laine – 1pt in 6 GP
  …
  The verdict?
  He is, and always has been a f***in beast.
  Every single player from his draft class that has outproduced him has played more minutes with better players and on the powerplay.
  Pierre-Luc Dubois? Stapled to Panarin, 1st unit PP.
  Auston Matthews? Stapled to Nylander, 1st unit PP.
  Patrik Laine? High octane centre and high octane opposite winger every single game, offensive zone starts, hidden from elites, 1st unit PP.
  Debrincat? Stapled to Patrick Kane, 1st unit PP, offensive zone starts.
  Matthew Tkachuk? Stapled to Frolik and Backlund, 1st unit PP.
  Clayton Kellers? Stapled to Stepan, 1st unit PP.
  If they start Jesse with Strome and keep him there, without PP time, I'm talking about firing McLellan every day.
  Staple him to Draisaitl and Rieder and put him on the powerplay. This is not hard.

 

[CycloneSweep]

Just had to repost this. To me poster calling himself Wilde has done some excellent job on analysing Pulju. This is from Lowetide's blog:

"WILDE says:

• July 3, 2018 at 8:49 pm
  ** BIG BOY POST ALERT **
  …
  We’re talking about 98, are we?!
  Here’s a post I wrote on 2018 draft day that went the way of the wind:
  
  Update on Puljujarvi:
  – He’s apparently training hard already, pushing numbers on bench(lol) and squat
  – Enjoying being able to train without injury unlike last couple summers
  – playing with Karpat once a week
  – good to be closer to home, but is working hard on his English because he felt he couldn’t be a
• good teammate and friend because of his poor English this year
  – all of this translation credited to Twitter user @kulta64
  …
  Now, I’ve been linking the latest published passing project data intermittently, and I took a look at Puljujarvi’s, here’s the link to the project:
  Tableau Public
  Highlights:
  – 81st percentile expected primary points per 60
  – 81st percentile shot assists from across the slot or behind the net
  – 72nd percentile expected assists per 60
  – 81st percentile expected goals per 60
  – 79th percentile one-timer shots per 60
  Lowlights:
  – 28th percentile involvement in the shots that occur when he’s on the ice
  – 37th percentile shot assists per 60
  My takeaways here is that we have a fantastically talented young individual with good character and it’s real ****in’ sad the way he’s been treated thus far.
  If we don’t trade him, though, we’ll forget about it when he’s a monster two-way force for a decade.
  These metrics kind of fly in the face of Jesse’s shot quality problem, I think the problem is finishing as one of the youngest NHLers. He’s getting to the spots, he’s getting the shot off, but he’s not finding twine. It’s part confidence, it’s part literally being 20. We saw this with Yamamoto. If he cashed on his dangerous chances at a reasonable rate he would have had 5 goals in his 9 games.
  When a player is old and has this problem, they just don’t have it anymore. Like how Cammaleri did a lot of things right, but it just didn’t go in the net anymore.
  When a player is young and has this problem, they just don’t have it YET.
  But they will, both of them… I’m confident.
  Please, for the love of god, keep these two guys and keep the 10th overall. A team with 97 on it shouldn’t /have/ elite prospects, but because of the injuries in 2015-16, and the size-based dismissal of a top 10 talent in 2017, and the man comin’ around in 2018, here we are: we have a mulligan.
  It won’t, in all likelihood, be another chance at a McDavid+Barzal+Hall team, but it is something… unless you rip the seeds from the soil once again.
  Get it right Pete, get it right Daryl, get it right Craig, and Godspeed, Keith.
  —————————————-
  I’ve also been meaning to talk about JP’s offensive potential for awhile.
  I’m of the belief that elite offensive capabilities show early. The only thing stopping the train is injuries.
  There’s been points made about the lack of offense in Pulju’s 17 year old season in Liiga, I have time for them. But I like getting the full year-to-year projection from when players are ~15. Jesse’s numbers are absolutely remarkable, playing up-age sooner and outproducing a lot of elite NHL Finns.
  Here’s Jesse:
  age –
  14 – 51pts in 42 GP – Jr U18
  15 – 23pts in 18 GP – Jr U20
  16 – 18pts in 11 GP – Jr U20
  / / – 13pts in 15GP – Mestis
  / / – 11pts in 21GP – Liiga
  17 – 28pts in 50GP – Liiga
  …
  Now, for comparable Finns, I’ll be putting all of their age – league seasons in order.
  Players are put in years by the age they are before the 2nd half of the season.
  So a player born in ’97 is in the ’15’ category, no matter the month… this means some guys have pretty big age differences, but I tried to grab guys within a few months of JP’s May birthday. Here’s their birth months, and in brackets a + or a – indicating whether or not their stats deserve a boost or a reduction because they were younger or older than the other guys:
  Puljujarvi – May ( = )
  Laine – April (= )
  Granlund – Feb ( – )
  Tolvanen – Apr ( = )
  Kotkaniemi – Jul ( = )
  Aho – Jul ( = )
  Teravainen – Sept ( + )
  Rantanen – Oct ( + )
  14 year olds in U18 league:
  Jesse Puljujarvi – 51pts in 42 GP
  Patrik Laine – 26pts in 27 GP
  (That’s literally it. Those two.)
  …
  15 year olds in the U18 league:
  Eeli Tolvanen – 84pts in 41 GP
  Mikael Granlund – 40pts in 22 GP
  Jesse Puljujarvi – 14 pts in 8 GP
  Mikko Rantanen – 13pts in 22GP
  Teuvo Teravainen – 26pts in 22GP
  Sebastian Aho – 60pts in 38 GP
  …
  15 year olds in the U20 League (This is basically Finnish exceptional status IMO)
  Jesse Puljujarvi – 23pts in 18 GP <– Excuse me?!
  Patrik Laine – 37pts in 40 GP
  Jesperi Kotkaniemi – 15pts in 33 GP
  Eeli Tolvanen – 5pts in 7 GP
  Sebastian Aho – 4pts in 5 GP
  …
  16 year olds in the U20 League:
  Jesse Puljujarvi – 18pts in 11 GP
  Mikael Granlund – 57pts in 35 GP
  Teuvo Teravainen – 20pts in 26 GP
  Sebastian Aho – 59pts in 44 GP
  Jesperi Kotkaniemi – 15pts in 17 GP
  …
  16 year olds in the Mestis:
  Jesse Puljujarvi – 13pts in 15 GP
  Patrik Laine – 12pts in 36 GP
  Mikael Granlund – 7pts in 6 GP
  …
  17 year olds in the Liiga:
  Jesse Puljujarvi – 11pts in 21 GP
  BONUS APPEARANCE:
  Aleksander Barkov – 16pts in 32 GP
  Mikko Rantanen – 3pts in 15 GP
  Patrik Laine – 1pt in 6 GP
  …
  The verdict?
  He is, and always has been a ****in beast.
  Every single player from his draft class that has outproduced him has played more minutes with better players and on the powerplay.
  Pierre-Luc Dubois? Stapled to Panarin, 1st unit PP.
  Auston Matthews? Stapled to Nylander, 1st unit PP.
  Patrik Laine? High octane centre and high octane opposite winger every single game, offensive zone starts, hidden from elites, 1st unit PP.
  Debrincat? Stapled to Patrick Kane, 1st unit PP, offensive zone starts.
  Matthew Tkachuk? Stapled to Frolik and Backlund, 1st unit PP.
  Clayton Kellers? Stapled to Stepan, 1st unit PP.
  If they start Jesse with Strome and keep him there, without PP time, I'm talking about firing McLellan every day.
  Staple him to Draisaitl and Rieder and put him on the powerplay. This is not hard.

Dubois earned his way up, he was on the third line, worked hard and worked his way up, same with Debrincat. Tkachuk showed up day one and hasn't stopped. Laine was better the moment they both touched NA ice, same with Matthews.

His advanced stats do look good. The eye test though doesn't put him on the level of those guys.

I'm fine with him getting more ice time by earning it, but gifting it to him (any prospect) for that matter we shouldn't be doing

 

[Gordian Knot]

Update on Puljujarvi

Yes, he is good hockey player already. Oilers are struggling to get best out of him and Jesse is struggling to bring all he got on the table. When all that clicks - sky is the limit.

Let him train PP1 in shooter position and carry pucks from blue line to blue line. When he excels those areas in training against NHLers, he will be force out there.

Just hope Todd would have some flexibility and foresight.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

We need this kid to take the next step if there are no more trades coming. This is Jesse's contract year and 3rd season in NA, if that's not enough motivation for him to have a big offseason followed by a good season then I don't know what is.

 

[Joey Moss]

Just read the stats breakdown from when Pulju was a teenager.. I remember watching Puljujarvi in the Mac's Midget tournament in Calgary in 2013, he was absolutely dominant. The announcers were raving about him and had him a potential 1st overall pick back then. Laine was on the team as well and guys like Juolevi, Ville Saarijarvi, Julius Nattinen. I bet half of that roster was drafted to the NHL, they were incredible.

Funny how things work out, three years later he's drafted by the Oilers.

 

[McFlyingV]

Dubois earned his way up, he was on the third line, worked hard and worked his way up, same with Debrincat. Tkachuk showed up day one and hasn't stopped. Laine was better the moment they both touched NA ice, same with Matthews.

His advanced stats do look good. The eye test though doesn't put him on the level of those guys.

I'm fine with him getting more ice time by earning it, but gifting it to him (any prospect) for that matter we shouldn't be doing

Dubois earned his way onto the top line with 5 points in 23 games. You would have never seen that in Edmonton with Puljujarvi if he was producing like that.

Regardless, its quite clear that Jesse's point totals are not a good indication of what he would be capable in a top 6 #1PP role. Instead those minutes went to Lucic and Letestu who did nothing with them.

Edit: After a closer look PLD produced 4 points in 20 games before being paired with Panarin. If that's earning it then Puljujarvi should have earned a top 6 spot all season long.

 

[LTIR]

Hopefully he gets prime PP time this year. That is all i will say here.

4th overall pick... expecting big things from him this year.

 

[McFlyingV]

We need this kid to take the next step if there are no more trades coming. This is Jesse's contract year and 3rd season in NA, if that's not enough motivation for him to have a big offseason followed by a good season then I don't know what is.

He will have a good season if the coaching staff grows a brain. Not only was his usage on the power play incredibly poor (net front LOL?), but his minutes were nowhere near where they should have been. As for 5 on 5 its absolutely mind boggling how 4 pointless games gets you demoted from the top 6 for the rest of the season. Prior to that he had scored 8 goals and 11 points in 21 games, and that was with 2/3 of those game involving bottom 6 minutes with little to no PP time.

Lets make no mistake. Jesse would have scored at a 20G-40 point/82 pace last season if the coaching staff had some sort of idea what they were doing. Hopefully 3 new assistants will give Todd's head a shake.

I'll also clarify, this is not all on coaching, but its a significant part of the story. Jesse has to do some maturing as most players that age do, and absolutely there are areas of his game he needs to refine. But to kill a kids confidence by not putting him into situations to succeed and not allowing him to make mistakes is Dallas Eakins level coaching.

 

[CycloneSweep]

Dubois earned his way onto the top line with 5 points in 23 games. You would have never seen that in Edmonton with Puljujarvi if he was producing like that.

Regardless, its quite clear that Jesse's point totals are not a good indication of what he would be capable in a top 6 #1PP role. Instead those minutes went to Lucic and Letestu who did nothing with them.

Edit: After a closer look PLD produced 4 points in 20 games before being paired with Panarin. If that's earning it then Puljujarvi should have earned a top 6 spot all season long.

If you watched Dubois play he was playing very well, his line mates weren't helping, he gave it 100% every night just the results weren't there.

 

[CycloneSweep]

He will have a good season if the coaching staff grows a brain. Not only was his usage on the power play incredibly poor (net front LOL?), but his minutes were nowhere near where they should have been. As for 5 on 5 its absolutely mind boggling how 4 pointless games gets you demoted from the top 6 for the rest of the season. Prior to that he had scored 8 goals and 11 points in 21 games, and that was with 2/3 of those game involving bottom 6 minutes with little to no PP time.

Lets make no mistake. Jesse would have scored at a 20G-40 point/82 pace last season if the coaching staff had some sort of idea what they were doing. Hopefully 3 new assistants will give Todd's head a shake.

I'll also clarify, this is not all on coaching, but its a significant part of the story. Jesse has to do some maturing as most players that age do, and absolutely there are areas of his game he needs to refine. But to kill a kids confidence by not putting him into situations to succeed and not allowing him to make mistakes is Dallas Eakins level coaching.

1/3 of his ice time this year was with McDavid. It's not like he got zero friggen opportunity.

 

[McFlyingV]

If you watched Dubois play he was playing very well, his line mates weren't helping, he gave it 100% every night just the results weren't there.

Prior to playing with Panarin he could not produce offence on his own at all on the 3rd line. 16P/82 game pace.

1/3 of his ice time this year was with McDavid. It's not like he got zero friggen opportunity.

1/3 of his 5 on 5 ice time yes (30% of his total ice time, 5 minutes of which were on the PP), but if you're looking at his production on a per game basis he didn't spend 1/3 of his games playing with McDavid. Puljujarvi played a total of 256:57 with McDavid 5 on 5. McDavid averaged 16:23 of 5 on 5 ice time this season. So at 5 on 5 Puljujarvi only actually played 15 or 16 games with McDavid, it just looks like he played with him more frequently because when he played with McDavid his minutes were much higher than when he didn't play with McDavid.

Btw, I'm not absolving Puljujarvi of all blame. He needs to improve in some areas, and he needs to play with more confidence. I just think its hilarious that people think his stats last year were indicative of his play or skill level. Way too many other factors prevented him from producing, and getting down on his potential over it is just silly. I mean we've had posters on here talking as if he hasn't even played at the level of an NHL player where he's actually played at the level of a quality 3rd liner who has been given limited opportunity to show if he's capable of more.

 

[Bank Shot]

I kind of hope Puljujarvi has a solid season showing strong two-way potential, and progress, but doesn't put up any eye popping numbers.

That way the Oilers can get him into a decent contract and benefit when he continues to improve.

 

[Stud Muffin]

Holy f***!!!! Most guys from the 2016 draft are just turning pro this year. Settle down.

 

[CycloneSweep]

I am probably the biggest Pulju detractor here but he is too solid defensively to ever bust. Will he live up to potential? I don't personally think so. Is he/will he bust? Nahhhhhhh