The NHL booking event 2016 created a frenzy of anticipation for Finnish hockey, the likes of which had never been experienced before. Now that drug appears to be a bursting bubble, writes Urheilu’s NHL reporter Tommi Seppälä.
Tommi Seppälä NHL reporter
It’s getting less and less before it runs out. Jesse Puljujärvi the situation in Pittsburgh and in the NHL in general is getting difficult.
The club put the Finn on the transfer list at the beginning of the week, where other teams could have picked the Finnish winger for free within 24 hours.
Torniolainen’s phone did not ring.
Having gone through a long and rocky road in the NHL world with major hip surgeries, Puljujärvi is undoubtedly starting to run out of oxygen with his NHL dream.
The difficult situation and lack of faith in the transfer list was underlined by Puljujärvi’s modest salary. An annual salary of “only” $800,000 screamed a classic low-risk, high-return opportunity, but no. The phone didn’t ring.
No one was interested, no one saw the possibility of benefiting from the power pier. Not even the bottom of the league. No, although Puljujärvi played cheerfully in many places in the fall.
It was a cold slap on the cheek of Puljujärvi, who had done merciless work after hip surgeries.
There are few straws left.
Next, Puljujärvi continues to pursue his NHL dream in the farm league AHL.
At least in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, this gets to be part of one of the best teams in the league. There are four other Finns in the same winning machine: Ville Koivunen, Valtteri Puustinen, Joona Koppanen mixed Joel Blomqvist.
The views back to the sun are bad. The Pittsburgh coaching team clearly did not trust Puljujärvi, and in the bright lights, the sick person would have to suffer quite a lot in order for Puljujärvi to get a reasonable chance with the Penguins. by Mike Sullivan otherwise, that does not happen under
Is there still a rabbit in the hat?
What next?
Puljujärvi has almost no other option but to try to break the AHL. Now we should once again succeed in rising to a new level.
Establishing the foundation is hardly enough anymore, if after a cheerful autumn in itself, Puljujärvi was not suitable for 31 clubs, even for free. Now we should put something on the table that the club bosses and coaches haven’t seen yet.
For example, the result is starting to beat at a rate never seen before. Apparently, Puljujärvi is not seen as a bottom chain player in the NHL.
Puljujärvi needs some kind of miracle on his side so that Pittsburgh or at the latest in the summer some other club would be ready to pay for his services. Puljujärvi’s two-year contract with the Penguins expires next summer.
The sad fact is that Jesse Puljujärvi’s NHL games may have been played. If something miraculous doesn’t happen during the winter and spring, the Puljujärvi road will take you to Europe next season.
It is of course disappointing for all parties involved. Puljujärvi has played 377 games in eight seasons in the NHL in Edmonton, Carolina and Pittsburgh.
We haven’t seen a big breakthrough yet, although there have been some good episodes along the way. When a player is booked fourth at the NHL booking event, expectations are naturally set high.
Puljujärvi has not been able to meet those expectations and fortunately for the player, the expectations brought by the reservation number have been given up a long time ago.
It has created some kind of identity crisis for Puljujärvi in terms of what kind of player he is trying to make a career in the NHL – coaches and club bosses also seem to be struggling with this issue.
Does anyone know in what role Puljujärvi could get the most out of its potential? I don’t think so.
It often seems that Puljujärvi is not able to play to his best strengths in the NHL. Puljujärvi has tried to make up for the shortcomings with swagger and reliability, but Puljujärvi is not even among the elite as a two-way player.
Puljujärvi falls in between – the power forward has a bit of all kinds of qualities, but no clear, bright self-image as a player.
That’s why the situation is what it is.
The crowd decreases
Puljujärvi is still not alone.
Who still remembers the glow and excitement surrounding the summer 2016 booking event in Finland? A good three Finns were booked among the first five players: Patrick Laine second, Puljujärvi fourth and Olli Juolevi fifth.
The rally has been rough for each of the trio. Longing to return to the elite, Laine’s last years have been full of turbulence. Vancouver’s Juolevi eventually played 41 NHL games and now represents Tappara. Puljujärvi is next on the trigger.
That summer, 15 Finnish players were booked into the NHL. The summer of 2016 crystallized a lot in the youth World Cup gold frenzy. It was a time of new arrivals in Finnish ice hockey.
Reality has since hit us in the face and the booking bubble has burst. If Puljujärvi returns to Europe, Laine will be the only one left for 2016.
If summer 2017 is included, eight players out of 38 Finnish reserves are playing in the NHL.
The work only begins with the NHL reservation, they say.