Last night’s fourth goal of the season does not change the overall picture. Edmonton Oilers Jesse Puljujärvi NHL career is on the sidelines for worse.
The fifth full NHL season is already underway, and the forward from Oulu doesn’t seem to have been out of the woods for a long time – rather the opposite. Puljujärvi, 24, seems to be playing the wrong kind of hockey in relation to his strengths.
The point guard of the junior days has regressed into a basic drill in the NHL. Puljujärvi has scored ten (4+6) power points in 44 matches this season.
Puljujärvi’s self-confidence is at zero and the game is pure survival.
Puljujärvi is not the first Finn to have passed through a rocky road. Who still remembers growing up to become a star player in Florida Olli Jokinen At the beginning of your NHL career?
Joki had a small reservation number (3:s), the youth WC gold and huge expectations – just like Puljujärvi (reservation number 4:s). Jokinen’s first trip to North America ended with a premature return home. Jokinen returned to HIFK for a year, just like Puljujärvi to Kärppi.
In the fall of 2001, Jokinen went into his fifth NHL season already without any records. Jokine had tried out in Los Angeles and then the New York Islanders, where he was traded to Florida.
– I remember that time like it was yesterday, says Jokinen, who currently works as Jukurien’s head coach.
– I went to Florida with great expectations. Fourth year and third organization when I was traded there. After ten games, the coach and GM got the boot. New coach Duane Sutter came to announce that I will never become a top chain player. I wouldn’t play a top 6 role in any team, at least once.
Judgments along these lines have also been heard in the case of Puljujärvi.
– At that time, the situation was that if you play in two base chains, playing is tackling and other roughing. For example, I started fighting. I fought tooth and nail to be allowed to play, Jokinen opens.
The direction of Joki’s career changed only after 300 NHL games, when a master coach known for his tough authority became Florida’s head coach Mike Keenan.
– Mike came and said that now we’ll see if all the player scouts were wrong about me. He said don’t be afraid of mistakes, now you get to play the next forty games with all strengths, weaknesses, says Jokinen.
– For the first time in five years, there was no need to be afraid of mistakes. However, in the past, the spirit of the game was that if you make a mistake, you don’t play.
The rest is Finnish NHL history. Jokinen’s goals in the following five seasons were 36, 26, 38, 39 and 34. When the game was cleaned up after the 2004–2005 lockout, Jokinen scored 89 and 91 power points in consecutive seasons.
– I always believed that I could succeed if I got the chance. Despite the fact that I played half a season in Florida, somewhere in between I was 1+0. I understood before the breakthrough season that if I don’t start succeeding now, things will start to get worse, Jokinen recalls.
Jokinen played 1,231 NHL games in his career and never forgot the lessons he learned in the first years.
– That school raised me spiritually. I understood that one can never be satisfied with one’s position, never. You have to fight every day and come out in training as well. I learned about professionalism and its brutality. The role was such that I learned to defend, play hard and protect myself.
– Keenan wanted me to succeed and be good, but the school was also in line with that. I was always the whipping boy for him, whom he whipped. When others got days off, I didn’t, says Jokinen.
“Jesse is a world-class player in my books”
Jesse Puljujärvi is in a very similar situation to where Jokinen was before his breakthrough season. There are 300 NHL games behind us, and there is no time limit. When comparing the duo’s statistics specifically for the first 300 matches, Puljujärvi is even clearly ahead of Joki – both in goals, points, power statistics and shooting power.
Puljujärvi has played almost one and a half minutes less per match than Jokinen. On the other hand, Puljujärvi has been able to play a lot in the top chain in his career as the world’s most dangerous attacker, Connor McDavid’s alongside. Jokinen did not get to enjoy such a luxury at the beginning of his career.
Jokinen does not attach too much importance to the fact that Puljujärvi has not broken through alongside McDavid.
– Everyone knows what is being said about McDavid. Rarely has Connor done anything wrong if it doesn’t work. The finger then points to the chain friends. When you score 0+0 in three games and a new guy is brought in to take his place, it really affects the player’s self-esteem, says Jokinen.
– But it’s competition, and in my eyes, the NHL is not quite as brutal as it used to be. The player must still be able to perform. It is also important how Jesse values himself. Is self-image built only through points?
Jokinen says he still believes in Puljujärvi’s breakthrough.
– Jesse is a big and very mobile player who has now stopped spinning in the corners. He drives well into the points and rushes to the goal with power. I don’t see any reason why he couldn’t be a 60-80 point player in that league, when he gets the chance next to the right players in the right role, assures Jokinen.
– Jesse is a world-class player in my books.
According to Jokinen, Puljujärvi needs a new start at the NHL level in new landscapes.
– I can see that a change of environment would be really good for him. The little amount I’ve been following the local media, there’s not much talk about anything other than Jesse. The media drives the boy out of town. On the other hand, the club management seems to understand on some level that they have a pretty good player on their hands.
– Jesse would now just need a little help on the mental side and support for everything he does on a daily basis.
Finally, Jokinen takes a look at the early stages of his own career.
– If I had given up in the most difficult moments, I would never have had such a career.