I wonder if it really was such a bad game until he was benched? I may be stupid to use time for this, but I wanted to know what was going on in the one period he played with Drai:
There were 5 penalties, which means there actually weren't too many 5-on-5 shifts. In one of those Drai scored a goal, where Pulju played a part too. I went through the GDT and I found only one negative comment and it was from someone who's usually first to do that.
So he may have been quiet and not playing up to his potential, but I didn't see signs of it being terrible, especially as the EJ said they thought Pulju was strong off the puck and the demotion was surprising.
I didn't see what happened on the 4th line, but the goals against weren't his fault.
He had two ugly turnovers and a poor backcheck (not the worst offender on the ice) on a goal against.
It is dissapointing that he played well enough on the 3rd line to get promoted, then almost immediately gets benched after a couple of games where the blender was in full effect because of injuries and tons of penalties.