Monday Mailbag – Does Puljujarvi Stick Around?

You watched the outdoor game, you got a bit day drunk, and now you’re looking for ways to kill company time until you’re allowed to leave. Luckily, the mailbag is here to save you from being too productive and I’m pretty good about not telling your boss about all the time you spent here. As always, the mailbag depends on your questions.  If you have one, you can email it to me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk. Enjoy the distraction, my friends, you’ve earned it.

Offence from everyone has been great. It is very early but RNH and Pouliot’s production hasn’t been where you would like it.

I have liked Connor McDavid with the puck on his stick, the top pairing of Klefbom-Larsson and the three victories in four games. Leon Draisaitl has been impressive, and Jordan Eberle continues to score. Milan Lucic and Kris Russell have had some adjustments to make, but I am pleased with both overall.

Liked: McDavid stronger and faster. Draisaitl in the face off circle. Adam Larsson more physical than I thought a Swedish defender would be.

Disliked: Not enough NHL players at RW. Nuge off to a slow start. Talbot spotty to begin the year. Third pairing defenders dropping like flies.

I’ve been extremely impressed with the Andrej Sekera/Kris Russell pairing. I figured the addition of Adam Larsson would shore up the first pair, but that second pairing RD job was a question mark and Russell did not look like a good fit in that role to me. So far, he’s done strong work and if that continues it will alleviate a major concern I had about this year’s Oilers. I haven’t liked the lack of secondary scoring; if not for Tyler Pitlick catching lightning in a bottle the struggles for the second and third line would be getting a lot of attention.

Big fan of the way Tyler Pitlick is playing. He is going for it and standing out each night. He is hungry and it shows. I also like the organ playing at Rogers Place. I don’t like that the Canucks are making me look bad. I picked them to be last.

Like McDavid, obviously, Lucic, Russell and Pitlick. Liked how the Oilers played against the St. Louis Blues. Wasn’t thrilled about the start of Talbot before he bounced back after his worst game.

Connor McDavid obviously. But I’m very impressed/surprised with the play of Kris Russell and Adam Larsson. They’ve both made a huge impact on our back end. We still need to tighten some things up and make fewer mistakes, but very good impression from the first four games.

I’ve been super pumped on Connor so far this season, but I feel like that’s a cop out. That said, I’ll go with Adam Larsson as being impressive so far this season. The guy has been defending well, laying the body when he has the chance, and making some nice outlet passes right onto the tape. Has he been perfect? No, but he’s been impressive early and that’s what matters.

On the other side, I will say that I’m not a fan of the Pouliot-Nuge-Kassian line. Pouliot and Kassian have career highs of 36 and 29 points respectively but we’re expecting that line to create offense. I think they could have one of those two guys on Nuge’s line but I’d rather see him get a winger with some touch. Lucic or Maroon would be ideal, imo.

Not much longer. I’m sure they want him to experience the Heritage Classic and meet Kurri, Tikkanen and Selanne. That would be huge for a young Finn, and I could see him in the AHL within ten days.

Yes, I do. For me, a trip to the farm is probably a reasonable idea, but JP has been very good at the things that usually drive a coach crazy—like being on the wrong side of the puck and losing battles. Puljujarvi has been impressive without scoring a lot, and those goals should come.

He should have been gone after preseason. The Condors schedule is such that there won’t be another game until Friday. He should be there by Thursday afternoon as far as I’m concerned. He can be recalled the minute he looks ready. Hire a Finnish/English translator as a second language teacher and get the kid playing hockey.

Nine games.

He is going to be good but not now. Going to Bakersfield would be great. Lots of ice time. He doesn’t need to get faster, he needs to get quicker.

The reality is decisions about Puljujarvi aren’t made solely on what we’ve seen so far. He can’t be sitting out as he did before the Winnipeg game. Would have no problem seeing him sent to the minors.

The fact that they’ve sat him out for two games already tells me he won’t be staying much longer. I’d say he sticks with the Oilers until his ninth game and then they send him to Bakersfield, unless he has a big two weeks.

I truly believe that Puljujarvi would be better off spending time in the AHL and you won’t be able to convince me otherwise. Sure, there’s probably benefit to practicing with the NHL team but I think it would serve him better to be playing 20 minutes per night in Bakersfield rather than 10 or less in Edmonton. I assume the team is counting his games carefully, but I’d have to hope he gets some development time with the Condors.

I never believe a player is unmotivated. Some days they physically won’t feel their best and they will lose battles. It is hard to tell if a coach is unmotivated or complacent by watching them stand on the bench. I have no idea how to rate if they are complacent. Some coaches match lines more than others, and if we disagree with who they put out on the ice in a specific situation doesn’t mean the coach is complacent. Hard to know if a coach is.

I think Struds will have a better answer, based on human nature it is certainly true but one would be hard pressed to find examples imo.

Well certainly some people *look* like they don’t care even if they really do. I can’t really speak to whether they’re motivated or not, just that obviously coaches can look bored too.

It’s a long season. I’m always hesitant to ascribe complacency or call out a lack of effort to players or coaches, but they wouldn’t be human if there wasn’t fluctuation over an 82-game (and often more) grind.

Interesting question. They are human and get up for big games, just like players. I think yes, it is probable that happens.

I don’t think you’ll ever be able to describe Todd McLellan as complacent. Sure, coaches probably fail to bring their A game 82 nights a season, although I can’t see an entire coaching staff all having a bad night.

This is a really good question, I like it. I can’t say that I’ve ever noticed a coach come off like that during the game. I think it all depends on their styles. In that case, did Dallas Eakins look lazy every game? Nah, he just stood in one spot and never spoke a word the whole game. Every game I watch, you always see McLellan walking up and down the bench, talking to all of the players.

Isn’t that human nature? I’m sure we all have days where we’d rather not be working, and I can’t see coaches or players being any different. I mean, just look at Todd McLellan in some of these post game pressers and tell me that he wouldn’t rather be home watching the Walking Dead.

Oilers. Their defence is further along.

Great question. I think Babcock has an advantage because the Eastern Conference is weaker, but for me I will pick the Oilers because 2017-18 should be the year in Edmonton.

Babcock doesn’t have McDavid so I say McLellan. If McDavid were somewhere else I would choose *that* team. The Leafs have a lot of kids. We’ve seen that show. Exciting last placed hockey.

Only one of those teams has Connor McDavid.

The Oilers. The Leafs have some work to do and they are so young!

The Oilers.

I’ll admit, the leafs are looking KIND OF impressive this year. However, I still think the Oilers will make it there first. We’ve been rebuilding for FAR TOO LONG for the Leafs to make it before us. They need a few years to feel what it’s like at the bottom.

OILERS! Mostly because we have Connor and they don’t. I also refuse to believe that the Leafs will make the playoffs first despite the junior conference they’re playing in.

I went to NAIT and took Radio and Television Arts. If you want a full-time job you’ll likely need some schooling, or be a former pro player, although freelancing has become very popular. If you want to be a writer, then you need to write. Start a blog. Write often and make sure you read. The best way to improve your writing is to write and read.

And you need to be passionate about it. You need to put in a lot of time and hours, but if you are passionate about it won’t feel like work.

I fell into it, honestly. One thing that helped is that I love to write, and this is an outlet for me and one I value every day. Seriously, I always wanted to do this and am thrilled for the opportunity.

This isn’t my full time job. I have a “real” job that pays all my bills and I go to five days per week. I’ll tell you how I got a job blogging, though. I did it for free for over a year just because I thought it was fun. After I had written on my own blog long enough that I wasn’t awful (debatable), I saw a job posting of sorts and applied. After I was doing the blog thing for a little over a year as a paid contributor other places started to ask me to write for them. So, my best advice is to just start writing. Scratch that, best advice is to learn how to code and make a website worth visiting that you can sell, and also write.

I’ve always loved watching hockey and writing generally, so starting an Oilers blog was a natural fit for me when I was bored while in trade school. It snowballed quickly; after just a few months of writing every day, OilersNation brought me on and other opportunities arose from that, even though I’d never really given any serious thought to leaving the oil patch previously. As somebody who has spent some time running websites and looking for good writers, I can say this: There is always a shortage of people who can think critically while producing a high volume of content. My advice to anyone who wants to get into writing about sports would be to not wait: Go start a blog, and write something every day. It’s not that time-consuming, the mere act of writing dramatically improves your skill as a writer, and when you’re looking for opportunities you have a body of work that you can point to and a track record of volume.

Jason Gregor forced me to join Oilersnation!

I picked something I was passionate about. The media business has changed so much since I got into it in the early 1980s, especially the formal training end of things. I came up in the old school era — we used typewriters — and I’m not sure a lot of what I learned applies today. That said, if you write, write a lot. If you talk, talk a lot. Understand that the competition for an audience is stiffer now than it has ever been because there are so many more outlets to choose from. You’re not only competing against formally trained writers/talkers but anybody who has a laptop, an internet connection and a desire to make their thoughts known.

I’m still at the beginning of my career and still feel like I have a lot to learn and experience, so advice probably shouldn’t be coming from me. I am, however, very proud of how hard I worked throughout university, and up until now. I am very fortunate for landing such an amazing job with Oilersnation and I would like to think that if I wouldn’t have worked as hard as I did, an opportunity like this would have never come up.

My advice would be to meet Wanye when he starts a blog and hold on as tight as you can until he hires you. Worked for me! Seriously, though, networking is the most important piece of advice I can give you. Meet people. Reach out to people you admire. Try to interview writers you like. Do whatever you can to talk to these people and learn as much as you can along the way.