WWYDW: Jesse Puljujarvi

Jesse Puljujarvi is an extremely controversial player among Oilers followers.

Opinions on the young Finn range from he should be on McDavid’s wing to he looks lost and needs to be in the AHL all the way to he should probably be traded for a defenceman. Now in the third year of his NHL career, I think one thing that we can all agree on is that Puljujarvi isn’t where anybody expected him to be after being selected fourth overall in the 2016 draft.

There’s no doubt that the Oilers haven’t done an admirable job in developing the Finn. He fell on their laps at fourth overall in 2016 when Finnish general manager Jarmo Kekalainen curiously passed up on him at third overall to select Pierre-Luc Dubois. He produced an insanely-good 17 points in seven games for a gold medal-winning Finland squad at the World Juniors and, at one point, was right up there in the discussion for the first overall pick with Auston Matthews and Patrik Laine.

Puljujarvi cracked the roster as an 18-year-old in 2016-17. He would play 28 games with the team before being sent to the AHL for the rest of the year. Last season, Puljujarvi started the season in the AHL while Kailer Yamamoto was given his nine-game cup of coffee in the NHL. After Yamamoto was returned to the WHL, Puljujarvi came back up and put up 12 goals and 20 points in 65 games. That’s good for a 15-goal pace over an 82-game season, which is pretty solid for a 19-year-old who saw little power play time.

This year, Puljujarvi absolutely killed it in the pre-season. He looked fast, strong, and confident, and was pegged as one of the league’s top breakout candidates. But, at this stage, Puljujarvi is struggling to find a role at the NHL level. Through seven games in his third NHL season, the winger has just one goal and a -4 rating. Also, Todd McLellan doesn’t seem to trust using Puljujarvi in key parts of the game. He’s averaging just 12:28 minutes per game, and, last game against Pittsburgh, lost his spot on Leon Draisaitl’s wing in favour of journeyman Alex Chiasson.

At this point, it doesn’t really matter what the Oilers have done to develop this player. Maybe he needed a year in Europe after his draft year and a full year in the AHL after that. Who knows. All that matters now is how they handle him moving forward.

That brings us to this week’s What Would You Do Wednesday question. How do you handle Puljujarvi? Does he belong in the NHL or the AHL? If he’s playing on the Oilers, where in the lineup does he fit? Should he simply be spoonfed top-six minutes because of his draft pedigree and natural talent? Or is he going to learn to be a complete player while playing in a bottom-six role?

Personally, I have a difficult time with how the team is handling Puljujarvi. While I do agree he shouldn’t simply just be thrown premium minutes because he was once the fourth-overall pick, there isn’t much to be gained having him play 10 minutes a game. I mean, last game against Pittsburgh, a fresh rookie from the AHL with hardly any reps of professional hockey experience earned more ice time than Puljujarvi did. I’m not sure how much there is to learn at the AHL level, but it can’t be much worse than sitting on the bench.

What say you, Nation?