Rumor: Jesse Puljujarvi Part 3: Maybe He Picked Out His Brain Through His Nose One Lick at a Time?

[guymez]

Good ol’ JP, providing the fans of Edmonton with stuff to talk about in the deadest days of the year. He’s even got us talking about geography, weather and education. Bless that boy. Can’t wait for part four.

We should be grateful.

 

[48g90a138pts]

So why did Jesse's feelings change recently. His agent backtracked a little while ago and said he was willing to come back, now he's throwing this out there again.

Just speculating, but did spending time hanging with Aho and playing in that game push him to slinging shit again?

Young professional athletes always get lessons on how to talk to the media, guess the Oilers didn't have a Finnish translator for him to teach him. It's usually in the best interest for the player, team, organization and fans if things aren't working out so well, to keep things on the down low. Jesse and his agent have royally screwed things up really bad. Holland has to play tough with this situation. This organization has to start pushing back on any RFA's who think they can determine when and where they want to play. Keep on cowering down it will happen all that more frequently in the future.

It's pretty much in the best interest for the organization to push him back to Europe. That will put Jesse in his place and really force him to smarten up and really work towards improving himself and his game. Whatever comes of it, so be it. Total loss of asset, trade or he ends up coming back here, I don't care anymore. The franchise is the most important part in this situation.

Not Jesse Puljujärvi.

 

[Soundwave]

People wanting to blame the agent for everything were being naive.

The agent is not going to demand a trade if it's not what the client wants. The whole "yeah but Jesse never said it, so it must be the agent forcing it as part of a scheme!" ... c'mon tell me you're not so naive to have ever believed that.

Jesse has wanted a trade for months. He instructed the agent to do it. Nothing changed.

 

[Burnt Biscuits]

The Oilers really need to look at overall skill when drafting people, both Puljujarvi and Paajarvi have a distinct lack of offensive finish and neither possess elite playmaking skill either.

Those should have been two huge red flags.

Jesse wants to play like Laine, the difference is Laine is much better because he has the second best shot release on the planet earth. Jesse has nothing comparable to that.

I think both being failures was more attributable to mental short comings.

Paajarvi's lack of finish was kind of innate to his game and he shouldn't of gone that high, but he would of been a good hockey player for a long time if he wasn't so timid and lacking in terms of assertiveness, he's a player that badly needed more self sacrifice in his game, he just wasn't willing to put himself in harms way for the sake of the team. Maybe the team thought his confidence would grow with time and would just become a different player, but his internal fire/ compete level was at like a 6 out of 10 and that doesn't tend to change a whole lot with time.

Puljujarvi I think had the talent and finish necessary to justify going high in the draft (though I agree he's not on Laine's level and never was and stated as much in his draft year), the problem with Pulju is he was always a bit of a raw toolsy project and the fact that he isn't coachable and apparently quite stubborn, really stalled his development (plus we brought him over too soon). It was our lack of thorough scouting into the players mental make-up that caused this screw-up, if you only watched the players play on the ice he certainly seemed highly justified in being a top 3-5 pick. Generally all players outside of the top 2 have some stuff they need to work on to be effective at the NHL level, Pulju just wasn't listening to the coaches and working on the right things and didn't seem willing to stick with the things that were working e.g. McLellan identified him as being good at depositing rebounds, but he stopped crashing the net & Hitch identified him as having a good stick on the forecheck, but got progressively lazier and looser on his forechecking role.

It seems like other teams put a lot more weight into the mental make-up of prospects than we do and it has been the case for a long time, like apparently Yak, Schremp, and Hemsky (obviously Hemsky was a big success) were all terrible interviews at the draft and made a lot of teams want to pass on them, but we never seem to care about much of anything outside of their play on the ice. While at times that way of going about things seems kind of admirable, it's time for us to change we just aren't able to mold these raw toolsy types who are resistant to coaching anymore like we did in the glory days or atleast not at a rate that it makes sense to continue doing what we are doing.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

Keep it on topic ladies and gentlemen, enough with the talk about whether Edmonton is good, bad or indifferent.

 

[Raab]

Jesse wants out because it’s not working here. It’s not really anyone’s fault. But hopefully for him he finds a better spot somewhere else, and hopefully for us we get something half decent in return.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

hopefully for us we get something half decent in return.

That's all that I care about.

 

[RandomGuy79]

Jesse wants out because it’s not working here. It’s not really anyone’s fault. But hopefully for him he finds a better spot somewhere else, and hopefully for us we get something half decent in return.

If you were any other team, why would you even offer a 3rd round pick for him? He has so many red flags and can't even be sent down to the AHL to work on his game. Only hope is that he plays a season in Europe and does reasonably well and grows up. But at this point I see little hope in that. I'd be shocked if he ever plays a single NHL game again.

Not sure Holland even wants him near the team at this point.

 

[Raab]

If you were any other team, why would you even offer a 3rd round pick for him? He has so many red flags and can't even be sent down to the AHL to work on his game. Only hope is that he plays a season in Europe and does reasonably well and grows up. But at this point I see little hope in that. I'd be shocked if he ever plays a single NHL game again.

Not sure Holland even wants him near the team at this point.

I’d look at a prospect in a similar situation

 

[McFlash97]

At this point, the Oilers should let this guy rot in Europe for the remainder of his Oiler tenure. Not sure if that's 3 or 4 years. Just f*** him. Your not getting anything of any substance back. Make an example out of this guy.

The team that drafts you...owns you for a select amount of time. Doesnt matter what your preference is goof.

 

[McShogun99]

I blame Columbus for all of this. If they drafted him like they were supposed to then we’d be sitting here with Tkachuk or Sergachev. f*** Columbus!!!!

 

[Del Preston]

At this point, the Oilers should let this guy rot in Europe for the remainder of his Oiler tenure. Not sure if that's 3 or 4 years. Just **** him. Your not getting anything of any substance back. Make an example out of this guy.

The team that drafts you...owns you for a select amount of time. Doesnt matter what your preference is goof.

He's f***ed if the Oilers can't find a suitable trade. He needs 7 accrued seasons (he only has 3) or to be 27-years-old (he's 21) for UFA status. The team owns him for the next 4-6 years.

 

[NotAVacuumSalesman]

In the assumption that JP comes back with a different outlook and attitude and signs with us. Do we not have to move out a contract to fit him under the cap?

According to Capfriendly we currently have 2.4M in cap space. 1.75M is allocated for potential performance bonus to Mike Smith.

That leaves us with about 0.68M.

Maybe it's for the best that both parties have JP playing in Europe this upcoming season. I don't see how we could sign him now under this circumstance unless we move out a contract. Am I missing something here?

 

[scholl]

If you were any other team, why would you even offer a 3rd round pick for him? He has so many red flags and can't even be sent down to the AHL to work on his game. Only hope is that he plays a season in Europe and does reasonably well and grows up. But at this point I see little hope in that. I'd be shocked if he ever plays a single NHL game again.

Because he has more potential than players available in 3rd rounds and he is older than those players. If you compare Jesse to players that "poorer" teams like Florida and Arizona have signed, you can notice that some of them didn't even have the talent or the body for a NHL career. For example Tallon signed Henrik Haapala from Tappara and said that he plans that Haapala is going to play in the 2nd line. That player is 5´9", 175lbs. He ended up playing only 5 NHL games and is now in the KHL. Devils pays $4.5 million for Gusev without being sure whether the player is going to make it in the NHL or not. Sometimes you have to take calculated risks and in this case I would do it. The player is so cheap but needs a lot of attention and coaching. I think that for example Olli Jokinen could fix Jesse's game. If it doesn't work out then let Seattle to pick him later on.

 

[scholl]

In the assumption that JP comes back with a different outlook and attitude and signs with us. Do we not have to move out a contract to fit him under the cap?

According to Capfriendly we currently have 2.4M in cap space. 1.75M is allocated for potential performance bonus to Mike Smith.

That leaves us with about 0.68M.

Maybe it's for the best that both parties have JP playing in Europe this upcoming season. I don't see how we could sign him now under this circumstance unless we move out a contract. Am I missing something here?

there is the performance bonus cushion of 7.5%. Have they exceeded that?

 

[NotAVacuumSalesman]

there is the performance bonus cushion of 7.5%. Have they exceeded that?

No, it's well below that value.

 

[nexttothemoon]

In the assumption that JP comes back with a different outlook and attitude and signs with us. Do we not have to move out a contract to fit him under the cap?

According to Capfriendly we currently have 2.4M in cap space. 1.75M is allocated for potential performance bonus to Mike Smith.

That leaves us with about 0.68M.

Maybe it's for the best that both parties have JP playing in Europe this upcoming season. I don't see how we could sign him now under this circumstance unless we move out a contract. Am I missing something here?

Manning will almost certainly be buried in the AHL... and someone like Jones/Bear/Lagesson will likely replace him... so that saves a little... about $350,000 or so.

Then there's a good chance that Brodziak might be buried as well... and almost his entire cap hit disappears (only $75,000 remains as a cap hit). He'd be replaced in the lineup by someone like Haas/Marody/Benson/Currie... so there's another net savings of anywhere from $75,000 to $300,000.

So right off the bat you may have anywhere from $425,000 to $650,000 in extra cap space to add to the current total.

Also... the potential performance bonuses can carry over to next season when they have a little more cap space to work with so it's not as if those performance bonuses are a "hard addition" to this year's cap... of course Smith actually has to earn them as well... and a good chunk of them are related to the playoffs (and while I'm actually more optimistic here than most... playoff odds are imo only a bit better than a coin flip and most would not even give them that much of a chance).

If JP comes back (and that's a huge IF because it certainly doesn't look probable at this stage)... his cap hit would likely be pretty small and you'd simply move another minor contract off the roster of similar value.

I can't see JP with a contract any bigger than say Nygard or Archibald have currently.

 

[NotAVacuumSalesman]

Manning will almost certainly be buried in the AHL... and someone like Jones/Bear/Lagesson will likely replace him... so that saves a little... about $350,000 or so.

Then there's a good chance that Brodziak might be buried as well... and almost his entire cap hit disappears (only $75,000 remains as a cap hit). He'd be replaced in the lineup by someone like Haas/Marody/Benson/Currie... so there's another net savings of anywhere from $75,000 to $300,000.

So right off the bat you may have anywhere from $425,000 to $650,000 in extra cap space to add to the current total.

Also... the potential performance bonuses can carry over to next season when they have a little more cap space to work with so it's not as if those performance bonuses are a "hard addition" to this year's cap... of course Smith actually has to earn them as well... and a good chunk of them are related to the playoffs (and while I'm actually more optimistic here than most... playoff odds are imo only a bit better than a coin flip and most would not even give them that much of a chance).

If JP comes back (and that's a huge IF because it certainly doesn't look probable at this stage)... his cap hit would likely be pretty small and you'd simply move another minor contract off the roster of similar value.

I can't see JP with a contract any bigger than say Nygard or Archibald have currently.

I was able to see a break down of Smith's bonus' structure. 750k on playoff bonuses oof while everything else is based on games played.

OT: Yea, I see JP getting something like 975k-1.5m.

But still, it's hard to imagine him coming back though.

 

[GameChanger]

I would suggest that you have a very strong bias and that bias is for the player. I s=dont think that all the blame falls on Jesse but I do think that most of the blame does.
I think that based on the evidence thats the only realistic conclusion that can be arrived at.

Please let's do this without the talk of bias sometimes. There are much better ways towards a fruitful conversation if that's the goal.

But as for the topic, I understand your view. I myself can't separate how much each party is to blame as I think this case has all the ingredients to make it more complicated than a typical one.

I could explain my thoughts more throroughly to show why I feel both parties are to blame, but I'm afraid the two of us would end up repeating the same discussion we've had so many times earlier. I'll just finish a couple of things and then I'll be out of this forum anyway. I hope there'll be some kind of a reasonable solution to this case, like I said it could maybe include some conditional picks.

 

[scholl]

He’s not playing for the Oilers. Why would anyone on the team want that clown on the beach with them. I don’t know for sure Connor was talking about JP in his comments but I suspect he was one of the guys he told to split.

he might have been the clown or the other players. If they were laughing at him all the time and when he learned the language more and realized that the jokes were about him, it wasn't such a nice surprise. The problem in Edmonton probably is that they don't have an experienced veteran player as a captain and therefore links between the head coach and players as well as between the older players and the newcomers aren't so good. They perform poorly, don't even qualify for the playoffs and now they have this kind of problems too. It might be that it's just Jesse who is a moron or maybe the organization is in mess and they are lacking a leader type of a captain.

 

[GameChanger]

Quick question, when you guys were or are playing meaningful hockey, what did you think of the guy who put himself ahead of the team? And the guy is a horror show to play with?

When it comes to his time in the team Jesse didn't put himself ahead of the team. I know enough about him to say that's not him at all. I understand if you feel he wasn't good enough, but he always plays for his team and he's very (maybe too) harsh towards himself.

My final thought for now. I totally understand why you guys feel offended he has said he'd like a change of scenery. But I'll never understand why almost all of you seem to think it's perfectly fine for the team to say they are willing to trade a player (like Gretzky said as a GM last spring), but even after that the player isn't allowed to feel insulted and want to change the team. I thought that was simply the first big move and after that I'd probably want away if I was the player.

So yes I'd love to hear if that's how you guys really really feel deep inside. The team can say "we don't believe in you and we're ready to give up on you", but the player needs to stay loyal for the next 4 years or so after that.

 

[ThePhoenixx]

Its a tricky subject.
I think everything you have posted was entirely reasonable and accurate.
That said there are a few hard core boosters that just dont want to hear an opinion like that and you will get attacked for it..

Two livable months.

You consider that accurate.

Ok then...

Edmontonians! Get out! Your two months of livability is up for the year! Flee!

 

[McBooya42]

he might have been the clown or the other players. If they were laughing at him all the time and when he learned the language more and realized that the jokes were about him, it wasn't such a nice surprise. The problem in Edmonton probably is that they don't have an experienced veteran player as a captain and therefore links between the head coach and players as well as between the older players and the newcomers aren't so good. They perform poorly, don't even qualify for the playoffs and now they have this kind of problems too. It might be that it's just Jesse who is a moron or maybe the organization is in mess and they are lacking a leader type of a captain.

Jesse's issues have nothing to do with Connor McDavid, unless he's butthurt that McD POSSIBLY might not want him on his wing. By all accounts, Connor would have a lot of reasons why (Jesse not following or learning the system, and always being out of position causing collisions with teammates. Jesse consistently flubbing passes or shooting opportunities. Jesse showing a lack of situational awareness on the ice all the time - hell he had no idea he was on camera eating pizza like a goof while Connor was being interviewed).

 

[Todd from Leduc]

I still think he could be a 1st Line winger for us, just need to give him more time with Connor to gel.

 

[McBooya42]

I still think he could be a 1st Line winger for us, just need to give him more time with Connor to gel.

What he needed to do was learn the language, the system, and how to be coached. He failed at all three apparently, but it's the captain's and Oiler's fault. He had several coaches try to work with him and guide him to success, and he refused to listen. He was given opportunities (on the top line too), but was proven repeatedly to not know where to be/go (due to not knowing/bothering to learn the system - maybe due to not bothering to learn the language)!

When you have several NHL coaches (one a lock to be in the HHOF) giving up on him, and players apparently telling coaches that they don't want him on their line....maybe, just maybe there's something up with the kid. Just saying...logic and all that.