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G28 Oilers vs Sabres: Should Puljujarvi Be In The NHL? |
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The Edmonton Oilers have avoided making a difficult decision for months and the pressure to do the right thing is mounting. The team is hoping for a breakout performance by rookie Jesse Puljujarvi to justify him being in the NHL right now.
Puljujarvi played an incredible Young Stars tournament and that appears to have propelled him into the NHL. Puljujarvi struggled in the preseason offensively and that continued all the way into the regular season. The Oilers were very bullish on Puljujarvi’s NHL readiness, proclaiming him NHL-ready shortly after his draft. I cant tell if the decision to keep him with the big club is motivated by some sort of development plan or if it’s just trying to save face.
If the Oilers do have a development plan in mind for Puljujarvi, it isn’t conventional by any means. The cranially humongous Finn just sat in the press box for a week watching other people play hockey. As the youngest player in the NHL this season, if anybody needs to be playing hockey it’s Puljujarvi. He’s averaging just 12:23 per game with a little more than a minute per game on the Power Play. He’s learning how other people play the game, not a lot after that.
I’ve always been leery of the watch and learn philosophy when it comes to kids. From my perspective, if you want a player to learn how to be a 1st liner, how to score, how to deal with those matchups, where to be on the ice to complement skilled players, then you have to be playing those minutes. If a prospect cant do that in the NHL right away that’s not a knock against them. It’s natural. But they can get that experience at the appropriate level, be it the AHL, CHL, or in Europe.
With most drafted players there’s a rigidity to the system that prevents NHL clubs from moving teenagers up and down as necessary. The CHL agreements preclude NHL teams from sending someone like Leon Draisaitl down as an 18 year old then bringing them back up part of the way through the season. Jesse Puljujarvi was drafted out of Europe and those rules do not apply. He can go play in the AHL and come back whenever the Oilers want.
That’s why the choice to keep him in the NHL even though he’s been so badly snakebitten and suppressed in the lineup is such a baffling one. The former 4th overall pick has just 1 goal in 20 NHL games, but the truth is that he isn’t playing overly poorly. He shoots the puck at a decent rate given his ice time. He plays on the right side of the puck (and as a result has the 2nd highest Corsi For % among Oiler Forwards). He has some wheels. He just isn’t able to put it all together right now.
We’ve seen this before. This is exactly like when the Oilers shoe-horned Leon Draisaitl into their lineup when he was 18. He wasn’t ready and once he was sent back to Jr he dominated the game at that level. When he returned to the NHL his game had matured enough and he started to perform. The difference is the Oilers might not need to wait until next season and they don’t have to send him down 2 levels. Puljujarvi can certainly play against kids at the World Junior Championship, but he can spend weeks or months in the AHL and be recalled when he’s ready or when injury strikes.
Well it seems that’s not something the Oilers are exactly interested in doing right now. That doesn’t make it the wrong call, though. For me, I would send this kid that is dying for offensive confidence back to the World Junior Championships to play for his country. If he dominates the tournament then fantastic. When he’s done he can go straight to Bakersfield of the AHL where he can play 19-21 minutes a night on the top line and get 3 minutes of PP time per game. He wouldn’t be back in an Oiler jersey until the team was desperate or he started to dominate the AHL.
What would you do with Puljujarvi?
LINEUP
I think Puljujarvi draws back in tonight against the Sabres. Slepyshev and Pouliot sit.
Lucic McDavid Draisaitl
Maroon RNH Eberle
Kassian Caggiula Puljujarvi
Hendricks Letestu Pitlick
Klefbom Fayne
Sekera Benning
Russell Larsson
Talbot
Gustavsson
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) Jumping Jack. Jack Eichel is going to be in this game against McDavid even though he appears to have tweaked his ankle in the last game. His participation in this somewhat forced rivalry has always seemed to irk him. He doesn’t appear to enjoy being 2nd behind anyone and the fact that McDavid is superhuman doesn’t seem to be helping. Sabres writer Mike Harrington earlier in the year mentioned that one surefire way to get Eichel to stop talking in an interview is to ask him about McDavid. He also said that even if Eichel’s ankle was healthy he would sit him in the Oiler game. So…Eichel probably isn’t playing at 100% tonight and that’s beneficial to the Oil. Hopefully the team hasn’t forgotten that he worst game they played all year was against the Sabres.
2) The Ders. Buffalo played and lost last night to Washington which suggests they will be playing their backup against the Oilers. Anders Nilsson played 26 games for the Oilers last year to some pretty poor results. His .901 save percentage as an Oiler just wasn’t good enough and he lost the backup job eventually. He has a career save percentage of .905 which should benefit the Oilers, but this season with the Sabres he has a .934 save percentage in 8 games played. He’s stopping lots of rubber in Buffalo. History suggests that wont keep up, but there’s little doubt he’s been hot a quarter of the way through the season. Edmonton faced a hot netminder in Dubnyk last game and couldn’t find a way to score more than once. Let’s hope they do better against a familiar face.
3) Benning The Mighty. One of the best stories this season has been the emergence of Matthew Benning. He comes from a hockey family with ties around the league, but he was not that highly touted of a College player. He has stepped into the NHL and with some quick decision making and some appropriately sheltered minutes, he’s managed to be an extremely effective defender for the Oilers. The Fancy Stats favor him quite well and on top of it he’s riding a really huge wave of percentages. So he’s been good and lucky. It’s a combination I’ll take. The duo of Russell-Larsson struggled greatly in the last few games. I think Edmonton will need to get more contributions from the other pairs and that puts pressure on the rookie. He’s been the goods so far.
Puck drops tonight at 5PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet West. Game On!
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Edmonton Oilers Blogger • 
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