The Jesse Puljujarvi saga in Edmonton has been dragging on for what feels like a very, very, long time. The young Finnish forward has stubbornly held firm in his refusal to ever play another game for the Edmonton Oilers organization and now time is running out in terms of a decision being made from both sides of this standoff.
You see the problem here for both Puljujarvi as well as Edmonton Oilers general manager Ken Holland is that Puljujarvi is still technically a restricted free agent and that means that the deadline for a new deal to get done is December 1st of this year. If you've got a calendar handy that means that by this time next week it will have been too late for the Oilers to pull of a trade and for Puljujarvi it will be too late to sign a deal that would allow him to play in the 2019 - 2020 National Hockey League regular season, regardless of what team he ends up with. This means that the Oilers now have roughly 6 days to trade Puljujarvi to a team he would be willing to play for, or alternatively Puljujarvi has 6 days to sign a new deal with this new look Oilers organization prior to being forced to spend the entire season in Europe.
The problem here for the Oilers of course is that Puljujarvi has done an excellent job of calling their bluff. The former first round pick has made it crystal clear that he is comfortable spending the remainder of the season playing for Oulun Karpat in the top-tier Finnish Liiga, and given his performance this season I believe him. Puljujarvi has looked rejuvenated with his former team, and is arguably off to the best season of his career at any level of play. Through the first 22 games of the season Puljujarvi has recorded 11 goals and 13 assists for a total of 22 points, and he currently points an outstanding plus minus rating of +19 through those 22 games.
Some have argued that Puljujarvi's value has been diminished by his return to Europe but I would argue that this has been an excellent year of development for the young forward, arguably better than anything he was doing with the Edmonton Oilers or their American Hockey League affiliate the Bakersfield Condors. The problem of course is that with Puljujarvi's current display of form the Oilers may be even more insistent that he return to the team. Why would you trade a player that could in theory slot right alongside center Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, especially one that would almost certainly come cheap as a restricted free agent signing.
It is hard not to sympathize a little with Ken Holland here as well due to the fact that he played no role in what happened to Puljujarvi during the previous era of Oilers management. I think everyone would be willing to acknowledge at this point that general manager Peter Chiarelli was an absolute failure of a general manager in Edmonton, and you would be hard pressed to argue that this is not a new team under the leadership of Holland and Oilers head coach Dave Tippett.
The clock is ticking, and we are getting an answer soon rather than later.
