Juolevi, Laine & Puljujärvi.

[AvatarAang]

The replies are so predictable, it's the weekly "never draft Finns, they are all busts" discussion number 2541. zzzzzzzzzzz... Some Finnish posters on this site tend to overrate Finnish prospects and can be annoying, but the narrative has shifted too far the other way now.

The sample size for a small country is small enough to have ebbs and flows with busts and good picks. Draft players, not nationalities.

(Go tell Florida, Colorado, Dallas and Carolina to not draft Finns. Just saying, some pretty good teams seem to have a lot of those bust country citizens. )

Dude everyone in this thread is discussing why some players from Finland appear to be injury prone.

You are the only person in this thread who mentioned the word bust (3 times) so I’m not sure why you are so upset.

 

[AnInjuredJasonZucker]

There was one Oilers training camp that Puljujarvi looked great but it never translated to the regular season. He looks great very briefly and then gets lost on the ice for the next 10-15 games and can't seem to get much done.

The language barrier and no consistancy in coaching didn't help.

 

[McShogun99]

I thought he was the safe pick of the D in that draft. The guy I wanted was Sergachev though. Sometimes wonder who we would have drafted if Puljujarvi was drafted by Columbus as expected.

I think it would have been Tkachuk. There was a lot of smoke from Oilers media about him leading up to the draft.

 

[behemolari]

I think its rather finnish prospects are either overhyped or undervalued

 

[Ianturnedbull]

I thought we went through this about Laine already. A knee in the recent preseason game was not his M.O. before he became a Hab.

He had some good play in WPG in his 1st season, and the spiraled.

He's been a reclamation project ever since he started with CBJ.

 

[DingDongCharlie]

I think it would have been Tkachuk. There was a lot of smoke from Oilers media about him leading up to the draft.

Yeah that would have been something. Imagine him on McDavid's wing.

There was also the rumours Montreal wanted PLD and we potentially could have made a much worse trade for PK Subban. Wouldn't have done the Hall for Larsson trade. Lot of dominos fell when Puljujarvi dropped that spot. Chiarelli stated something along the lines of drafting Puljujarvi made doing the Hall trade easier.

 

[Leafidelity]

JP's hips have been an issue sure but it's more his lack of hockey sense that has held him back. Laine couldn't have done anything to avoid being kneehunted by a goon. Juolevi is really the only one of those three who qualifies.

Patrick Laine hasn't played a full NHL season since 2019, and only twice since 2016.

At some point, its on him for not protecting himself.

 

[All Mod Cons]

All 3 of them would smash Matthews in a poll.

 

[VeteranPresence]

Patrick Laine hasn't played a full NHL season since 2019, and only twice since 2016.

At some point, its on him for not protecting himself.

So if somebody blatantly knees Matthews and puts him out for 3+ months, that's on him? After all, he has only played a full season once in his career.

 

[Leafidelity]

So if somebody blatantly knees Matthews and puts him out for 3+ months, that's on him? After all, he has only played a full season once in his career.

You can try to gaslight all you want, but nothing about Pare hitting Laine was blatant. Laine made a dumb decision trying to split two defenders (while another was still behind them?) and got caught going through.

Also, Matthews has played an entire season more games than Laine since they were drafted

 

[VeteranPresence]

You can try to gaslight all you want, but nothing about Pare hitting Laine was blatant. Laine made a dumb decision trying to split two defenders (while another was still behind them?) and got caught going through.

Also, Matthews has played an entire season more games than Laine since they were drafted

Soooo no, the same standard does not apply. Just wanted to make sure.

 

[SEALBound]

Puljujarvi seems to be playing his way on to the NHL roster for the Penguins. He's looked quite decent in the pre-season. Hopefully he can keep it up. I'd really like it if he was able to rebound a bit.

 

[CraigBillington]

Laine is injured all the time and spends his time w/ PlayStation.
Pulju is a crackpot.
Juolevi was overhyped 100x by the Finnish dick riders.

When has Finland developed real talent? Like never? Just some ok grinders but not real stars.

Never never? I think you might need to look into that

 

[oba]

Shhhh ...... Barky ..... Shhhh ....

 

[lawrence]

stats wise I thought Juolevi should have gotten more points considering he was literally one of the most stacked teams in OHL history. that was red flags already, but draft is such a crap shoot. even if you look at 25 years of first round pick data, theres at least 2-3 picks that totally bust. So 20% chance at a top 10 pick being a total flop.

 

[Jumptheshark]

If Pare was a goon, he would have fought Wi-Fi instead of running away.


"Way to early" is stretching it. The Canucks should definitely have taken Tkachuk with their pick instead, even without hindsight. But he was solidly rated in the Top 10 by most scouts. Injuries definitely derailed his development and ended up sewering his career.

I'd put him and Laine in the same injury prone tier... Pool Party turned out to just not have an NHL mind.

Joulevi was ranked around 15 to 20 in the scouting reports I saw

 

[KingJoffrey]

With Pulju it always was a concern that he might just be a bit slow. His english was way worse than avg 15y olds in Finland have.

And he trained too much and too hard which caused him to broke his body.

Fault lies in his agent, his parents and himself. Hire a english tutor. Pay a top dollar to have great fitness/offseason coach.

Pulju was that guy who without warming up went to do benchpress with max weight.

 

[WayTooCold]

In The red Wings we used to have a rule to not draft Finns.

Pulju is a great example of why. Can't communicate w/ English. His hips are already shot from squatting max weight all the time.

 

[Czechboy]

Could be possible they all overtrained at too young an age. This led to injuries down the road.

One theory anyways.

Honka was another one that I thought would be exceptional.

Czechs are worse if it is any consolation... Zadina, Kaut, Hajek, Zboril and Vrana come to mind. Then Voracek, O. Kase and Chytil all with big concussion issues. I actually get it when scouts don't draft us anymore.lol

Now Kulich seems to be a bench warmer and people don't like Jiricek's skating.

 

[DaveG]

JP's hips have been an issue sure but it's more his lack of hockey sense that has held him back. Laine couldn't have done anything to avoid being kneehunted by a goon. Juolevi is really the only one of those three who qualifies.

ehhhhh Laine's had major injury issues before this pre-season. I think both he and Juolevi have been victims of unfortunate circumstance.

JP is 100% his hockey sense though regardless of injuries, at the least he has the size that he should have been able to make himself into a bottom 6 grinder but he hasn't even been able to adapt to do that.

 

[Breakers]

Juolevi wasnt even a finalist for OHL d-man of the year. Nor was he top 5.

Sergachev (same draft class) won it, youngest guy to do it in awhile. So even if you went by people who watch OHL exclusively, they weren't high on him amongst d-man in the same class and in the same league.
Even that guy who works for stathletes who does the analytics for the OHL said at the draft he has no idea why juolevi is rated so high, his underlying were trash compared to Serg and Chychrun. They weren't even better than Victor Mete who played more minutes than Juolevi

 

[DingDongCharlie]

Joulevi was ranked around 15 to 20 in the scouting reports I saw

Yeah I recall him being called a safe pick but lacking the upside of Sergachev and Chychrun. I was both surprised he went off the board before both and was shocked Chychrun dropped as far as he did.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

My question is, has something close to this ever happened before? Like three out of top5 picks from the same draft that get injured on that level?

wendel clark and craig simpson went 1 and 2 in 1985. both were excellent goal scorers who were severly hampered by injuries.

ditto brian lawton and sylvain turgeon in 1983. hall of famers lafontaine, yzerman, and barrasso went 3, 4, 5.

 

[Turin]

Laine needed to improve his skating from his rookie year and he would have been a superstar. Instead he got back problems + gained more weight and his skating just got worse, not better.