Confidence is key for Puljujarvi, TSN’s Ferraro says: “He looks like he’s terrified.”

Is Jesse Puljujarvi the next Nail Yakupov? Or is he the next Dylan Strome? Is he a bust or a later bloomer?

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I see far more Strome than Yakupov in the player, so I’m hoping that new Edmonton Oilers GM Ken Holland and coach Dave Tippett are patient, offer him a new two-year deal, and see if they can’t bring the best out of this 21-year-old forward in the next season or two.

Most Oilers fans know what it means to be Yakupov, a player who was taken first overall in the 2012 entry draft but failed to reach his potential as an NHLer, bouncing from Edmonton to St. Louis to Colorado, then off to the KHL after six NHL seasons. Yakupov never had a 20 goal or 40 point season. He never became a solid two-way player.

Strome? The third overall pick in the 2015 draft, he spent two more years in major junior after he was picked, then split a season between Arizona in the NHL and their AHL farm team. He played 50 AHL games in that third season after his draft year and put up 53 AHL points. It was a promising total, but he got off to a slow scoring start with Arizona this past season, scoring just six points in 20 games. He was traded to Chicago, where his game suddenly took off, with Strome putting up 51 points in 58 games.

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Sometimes it takes time

It was only in Strome’s fourth season then that he finally found his stride as an NHL attacker. It also took him getting traded away from Arizona to a new organization. Perhaps that’s in the cards for Puljujarvi as well, though one would hope that if he is ready to pop in his fourth season, as Strome did, he’ll do it in Edmonton.

Strome isn’t alone among top drafted forwards in recent years to take a few years to pop. Elias Lindholm, the fifth pick of the 2013 draft, had 21, 39, and 39 points in his first three seasons in Carolina, then 45 and 44 before finally putting up 78 points after he got traded to Calgary last year.

Jonathan Drouin, the third overall pick in 2013, went back to major junior for a year, then had two iffy years split between Tampa and its AHL team team. Finally, in his fourth year, Drouin put up 53 points in 73 games for the Lightning.

Can Puljujarvi do the same?

2018-19 Edmonton Oilers in review on Puljujarvi

At the Cult of Hockey, we track the players for their major contributions to Grade A chances for and major mistakes on Grade A chances against. Puljujarvi’s numbers are mediocre at best. He was unable to generate many Grade A scoring chance shots on net. The good moments were few and far between. He seemed to spend much of his time crashing to the ice, though it’s hard to know how much of that was related to his hip injury, which eventually needed surgery.

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But Puljujarvi is still only 21 years old. He’s 6-feet, 4-inches, 200 pounds, he’s got good speed and now and then he flashes both a good shot and good stickhandling. His hustle is OK, though it doesn’t always seem he knows his role and where exactly to go on the ice. In fact, if there’s one thing that marked his game this past year it was a seeming of lack of confidence.

Lucic has been his most common linemate these first three seasons, playing 674 minutes with Puljujarvi. Puljujarvi was slated to play on a line with Ryan Strome last year, but that combination only saw a handful of games together, then Strome got traded.

As an attacker, Puljujarvi has some game on the left half-wall on the power play, where he’s got a strong onetimer shot and can make a pass. But in three seasons I can’t recall the Oilers ever using him there. Not even once. This is a head scratcher, a sign of coaching incompetence. Yes, even veteran coaches like Todd McLellan and Ken Hitchcock can get it wrong. They’ve sometimes sent out Puljujarvi on the power play but never in his this optimal spot. Why?

Nor has Puljujarvi ever been used on the penalty kill, despite his good stick and huge wingspan. Why?

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Yes, players have to earn their minutes, but others who haven’t come close to excelling have been given more special team minutes. At this point no one is arguing to play Puljujarvi steadily with Connor McDavid, but could he at least be given regular linemates on the third line, a spot on the left halfwall of even the second power play unit and some PK time to keep him in the game?

Confidence is key, Ferraro says

On Jason Gregor’s show, TSN analyst Ray Ferraro discussed how Puljujarvi’s game and confidence have fallen apart.

“I would be most interested if seeing if I could salvage a player here,” Ferraro said of the player. “Three years ago he’s the Number Four pick in the draft. And I’m sure he looks around and sees the success that other guys have had and sees the lack of success that he’s had. And he’s also been in a pile of mud here in Edmonton. Let’s be honest here. You can look at two players that have had good years in the last couple of years. For the most part there’s been a lot of shuffling from the left foot to the right foot and not much has advanced, so I’m sure he looks at it and it’s probably pretty overwhelming for him. And there’s lots of criticism to be had for everybody.

“If I’m sitting in the big chair, I’m going to try to slow the train down a little bit here, just to see if we can get one last gasp at this and it would be my first gasp at it as a manager. Because what has happened before me, I can’t do anything about that. What I can say is that things are going to be different now…”

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All that’s been stacked up against Puljujarvi in terms of coming over to Canada as an 18-year-old from a small Finnish town, not speaking any English, and then getting bounced around the line-up and the organization has taken a toll. “How is an 18-year-old going to sort through all that?” Ferraro asked. “He’s just not.”

You can see it in Puljujarvi’s game, Ferraro said. “My concern is he doesn’t look anything like he looked in junior. In junior he carried the puck, he shot the puck, he used his size to create separation. He doesn’t do anything like that. When he gets the puck it looks like, and I’m going a lot by the very few games this year when I watched him live, his first thought seems to be to get rid of it as fast as he can because he doesn’t want to screw up. And you’re not even looking at a player anymore. You’re looking at a guy in a uniform. He has zero faith, it appears, in his ability right now. And so the first step would be to build him up and if he makes a mistake, look past it. Coach him up. Find him a path of confidence. And then if it doesn’t come, then it doesn’t come.

“Right now I can’t tell you one real solid sense I have from Puljujarvi. Because he doesn’t shot the puck like junior. Where did that go? He doesn’t skate like there. He looks like he’s terrified, like to go to the wrong place, to be in the wrong place, to do the wrong thing. His assets are his physical gifts and he doesn’t use them. And to my mind they started him on a path he wasn’t ready for and the car starts going faster and you’re falling behind every block. And you just never catch up.”

Puljujarvi is now done his Entry Level Contract and is an RFA. There was a rumour — denied by Puljujarvi’s agent — that the player had signed to play in the KHL.

Puljujarvi could push for a trade in the NHL and not have it work out on his new team as well, Ferraro said. “There is no golden parachute here — oh, you get traded and everything is going to work out for the best. I’d be careful if I were him, too. I’d slow down things just a little bit until I can get a better handle on what the new guys are going to do.”

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Bottom lines

The Oilers handling of Puljujarvi, which has greatly contributed to his collapse of confidence, rightly contributed to the firing of Todd McLellan and Peter Chiarelli. The previous mistakes would now be compounded if Holland decided to trade away a young player brimming with talent for a second round draft pick.

At the same time, Puljujarvi has got to find a way make his game work at the NHL level. He’s got to make up his mind that no matter what obstacles are in his way, he’s going to try to make plays in the offensive zone, and to hustle, hit and use his body in doing so.

I think Puljujarvi is a more talented attacker than Yakupov. He’s bigger, faster, with much better on-ice vision. He’s also a better defender. I don’t think he’s Yakupov. I think he’s Puljujarvi, a big, fast, skilled, attacker and defender, a player who can still help the Oilers win if only he can will himself to success, and if only the Oilers can for once use him consistently and to his best ability.

An entire season of consistent usage of Puljujarvi might just bring out consistent play in the player. Does that make sense? It hasn’t been tried here in Edmonton, but it’s not too late to start, one would hope.

At the Cult of Hockey