If Pulju wants to sign an extension in the $1.25 - 1.4M range and come back then that could potentially be alright in my books, but it depends on how you intend to assemble the lines, and it's down the list a little ways in terms of preferred options. He's fine playing with forwards who create chaos in the O zone, but he shouldn't been spending a lot of time with McDavid or Draisaitl where you've gotta be able to make plays and quick reads. I could see a line of Holloway-McLeod-Pulju being successful though.
All that said, Holland needs to sort out the top 6 and add a legit top 6 RW. The internal options are potentially there with Bourgault, Lavoie, and Tullio but they're all likely 2+ years away from being ready for regular top 6 time if things pan out, and they're all question marks right now. Would it be more worthwhile to spend that cap space on addressing a need at forward in the summer, or do you go with what you know because it's easy and familiar given there are some positives to Pulju's game despite his obvious shortcomings?
If you just think ahead to the summer and clear out all of Yamo, Pulju, Foegele and Janmark that frees up $10.1M, then bring back McLeod and Kostin at a combined $4M AAV, Bouchard bridged at $2.8M, Ryan at the current $1.25M AAV and add Lavoie as RW in the bottom six at $850k. With a salary cap of $84.5M that leaves you with $7.0M in cap space to fill in a top 6 RW and another winger, and add 13th and 14th forwards. If you're adding Karlsson/making D trades that's a whole other kettle of fish, so let's not for sake of ease in this scenario and look at what's missing from that roster:
Kane - McDavid - Hyman
Nuge - Draisaitl - _______
Holloway - McLeod - Kostin
_______ - Ryan - Lavoie
_______ - _______
Nurse - Ceci
Kulak - Barrie
Broberg - Bouchard
- Kesselring
Clearly the mix on D has to change and regardless of how you arrange the deck chairs at forward you need a better fit at RW in the top 6 than the existing options have provided this year. Jesse could fit in the bottom 6 but you should definitely be looking at other options first.
Best option for Pulju is to extend him at half his current cap hit on a 1 year show-me deal so that he can be traded and build his value back up in a new market with less pressure and expectation. Maybe the Oilers can get a mid round pick back that way too.
