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Jesse Puljujarvi is a roll of the dice the Sabres should explore

by Chad DeDominicis - 0

The Buffalo Sabres could use an infusion of young offensive players into their lineup. Their prospect pool doesn’t have a lot of high-end talent at this time outside of Dylan Cozens. As a result, they should focus on looking for young players that may need a change of scenery from another organization.

There are a handful of players that the Sabres could explore to improve their roster that fall into this category and they have a few players of their own that could use a change of scenery to swap. With the possibility of the NHL salary cap remaining flat for the next few years, they need to find some cost-controlled players that can contribute offensively.

Rebuilding Value

One such player that comes to mind for me is Edmonton Oilers winger, Jesse Puljujarvi. After being selected fourth overall back in 2016, he hasn’t lived up to expectations. Before last season, he requested a trade from the Oilers to get a fresh start. He no longer wants to play in Edmonton and decided as a restricted free agent to sign with Karpat in the Finnish pro league Liiga for this season.

Puljujarvi’s camp hoped for a trade in-season but it never materialized. The good news for both the Oilers and Puljujarvi is that he excelled in Finland. He helped rebuild some value around the league after a strong season for Karpat. 

When his season was canceled, he ranked fifth in the league in goals (24) and fourth in points with 53 in 56 games. The 22-year-old led the league in shots and it wasn’t close. The next closest player was 97 shots behind him.  Another interesting data point that you can pull off of the Liiga website is that he led the league in 5 on 5 shot share (CF%) at 62.2% among players to play at least 20 games. 

New Opportunity

It’s important to note here that Liiga doesn’t have the same level of competition as the NHL or even the AHL for that matter. A player of his caliber should play well in that league, but performing as one of the best players is an encouraging sign for teams that may have interest in him. 

A new opportunity would be good for Puljujarvi. He wasn’t put into the best situation with the Oilers. For example, in his last season in Edmonton (2018-19) his most common linemates were Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Milan Lucic, and Jujhar Khaira according to Evolving Hockey. Outside of Nugent-Hopkins, those linemates don’t exactly help a young scoring forward find their game. 

The numbers behind Puljujarvi’s first few years in the NHL are not good. You’ll see below in Micah McCurdy’s impact charts that his contributions were not positive at either end of the ice during his NHL career and he average at impacting scoring.

In this situation, you’re rolling the dice on age and potential. If he was in his mid-to-late 20’s, a team may not be inclined to see the possibility of a turnaround taking aging curves into account.

After a season of growth, teams should be willing to take a chance on seeing if he can reach his potential again. He’ll need to be placed in a top-six role with linemates that can help him at both ends of the ice. For the Sabres, it would make sense to play him with Sam Reinhart and hopefully a new center they bring onto the roster in the offseason. If Dylan Cozens is with the Sabres he could be a good option as a linemate in a sheltered offensive role.

Conclusion

The Sabres have a few players that they could include in a trade like this that could use a change of scenery as well. One such player is Casey Mittelstadt. He’s one year younger than Puljujarvi, but things have not worked for him to this point in Buffalo. He’s regressed since his draft year and may not have the ability to play center in the NHL.

It may be too soon to move on from him, but only two players in the organization are off-limits in any trade discussion.

There’s no denying that the Sabres could use a young winger with offensive upside and size. He’s a player that could provide value on a cheap contract for the next few years. Before signing in Finland, the twins projected Puljujarvi to receive a two-year contract, with a $1.36 million cap hit in their 2019 model. I wouldn’t expect a new deal in the NHL to be that far outside of that range.

I can’t overstate the importance of the Sabres finding players that could provide an impact on a value contract. The salary cap is going to be difficult to manage the next few years with the current situation and big contracts that they’ll have on the books moving forward.

Data via Evolving Hockey, Liiga, Hockeyviz.com, and Rank King

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