Puljujarvi Ready To Ruin Plans

Sometimes a perfectly good plan gets ruined by an unexpected surprise. The weather changes and the picnic gets ruined. Grandma decides now is the perfect time to make an unannounced visit. A Philadelphia Flyers player jumps on Connor McDavid’s back. That kind of stuff.

Sometimes it’s a happy surprise and plans change but overall everyone is better off for it. Right now, I have a vision in my head of how the Oiler forwards are going to look. On paper, it’s not bad. It looks something like this:

Personally, I think it has balance, scoring, and defensive acumen in all the right places. I could switch Versteeg and Yakupov around and it wouldn’t make a lot of difference for me. It all really depends on whether Versteeg is actually healthy enough to play (that was the concern in Switzerland, apparently).

I keep Eberle on the second line because he’s too good to waste as the third wheel on the McDavid-Lucic line. Yakupov or Versteeg ought to be able to play that role reasonably well while the team depends on Eberle to boost the Nugent-Hopkins line. The goal, at the end of the day, is to win hockey games – not to dole out linemates to players who were being good little boys all year and really deserve to play with McDavid. That’s the kind of loser thinking that only creeps into teams who haven’t even considered winning in six or seven years.

Draisaitl centers a soft minutes line with Maroon as his sidekick and one of the two more offensively minded wingers who doesn’t gel with McDavid. He will also find himself consistently on the RW of that McDavid line when the bench is getting shortened or when it’s strategically advantageous. McLellan played that game for years with Pavelski and Couture. I’m sure we will see it again here.

The fourth line finally sheds itself of the anchor that was Korpikoski and Kassian gets a full shot at redemption. Hendricks and Letestu continue their roles as defensibly responsible checkers. Only this time that line maybe gets nine minutes a night as long as the other three don’t drop the ball. There’s a lot of crash, bang, jam, grit, and faceoff proficiency added for minimal ice time.

That’s the plan and I like it. Except for one small thing – Jesse Puljujarvi looks like a beast unleashed. He dominated the Young Stars Tournament as well as any other prospect Edmonton brought to Penticton over the last several years, and he kept going against the Bears.

Jesse Puljujarvi was taken fourth overall and at the time the GM said he was one of the three kids they believed was NHL ready. They scrapped plans to make deals on draft day because they felt like he was going to fall to the Oil instead of being taken third overall like many believed he should. The Blue Jackets’ mistake was Edmonton’s gain and right now it’s easy to see why the Oilers were so thrilled about it.

He started the tournament with two goals and one assist against the Canucks rookies. They gave him the next game off and he returned to action against the Jets where he picked up another three assists. Against the University of Alberta Golden Bears Puljujarvi tallied another two assists and, as Connor as my witness, he could have had three more if Caggiula had buried more of his Grade A chances.

For those keeping score, that’s eight points in three games for Jesse Puljujarvi against this level of competition.

He’s fast, big bodied, skilled, and has played against men in Finland. He’s also eligible to play in the AHL because he was drafted out of Europe. That plan way back at the top of this article had the Finnish winger developing in the AHL for some period of time to start the season. He has given every possible indication so far, however, that he wants to challenge for a spot today.

I doubt the Oilers will treat him like Yakupov and make him “earn” linemates that can actually play in the offensive zone and I wouldn’t want them to. So there will be three spots between Eberle, Yakupov, Versteeg, and Puljujarvi. Eberle is a no brainer, he’s got one of them. The most intriguing battle in training camp as far as I’m concerned is who takes the next two RW spots on the offensive lines.

At this point, I don’t think I’d be willing to bet against Puljujarvi.

Are you involved with minor hockey? OilersNation, along with our partners at Donnan and Vimy Hockey, is looking to sponsor 15 Edmonton area minor hockey teams for the upcoming season. Each team will receive an OilersNation branded hard hat, t-shirts for the player of the game award, and sticker packages for all of the players. If you are interested in having us sponsor your minor hockey team you can apply by sending your team information (age, league, team name, and contact information) to info@oilersnation.com. Teams will be randomly selected for sponsorship so only one entry per team is required.

The deadline to enter your team into the draw will be Friday, September 23rd. Good luck!