The National Hockey League currently has the salary cap at a standstill and there’s no sign of it increasing any time soon. Because of this, the Philadelphia Flyers find themselves in quite the conundrum as they are currently squeezing in just underneath of the cap ceiling about as well as you may be squeezing into your pants after this holiday weekend’s cookout. As it stands now, the Flyers have many restricted free agents still left to re-sign this off season and even more after the following season as well; Some of these players are coming off their rookie contracts and will require significant raises. Those names whose bank accounts are about to get a lot larger this off season include defensemen Robert Hagg and Philippe Myers, and forwards Nolan Patrick and Nicolas Aube-Kubel. The following season, the Flyers will have to pay both defenseman Travis Sanheim and goaltender Carter Hart. Hart alone will be deserving of at least a six to seven million dollar a year contract. That’s a huge inflation from the $730,833 he makes now. Needless to say, there will not be a lot of funds leftover to bring in any top-level talent to give Philadelphia the needed boost they require to advance past the remaining playoff contenders who are still left in the hunt for the Stanley Cup as we speak.
As a result, the Flyers’ General Manager Chuck Fletcher will have to get creative. One low-risk but potentially high-reward move that Chuck could make is to trade for Edmonton Oilers’ prospect Jesse Puljujarvi. Puljujarvi was the Oilers’ 2016 1st round pick that they selected 4th overall. Jesse is now 22-years-old and is 6’4 and 201 pounds. Edmonton may be willing to get rid of this talented, young, Finish prospect because Puljujarvi and the Oilers have had a bit of a falling out over the years (to put it nicely). Back in 2016 when Jesse was drafted by the Oilers the team was a bottom dweller: They came in last in the Pacific Division and thus felt the need to rush this gifted player to the NHL the following season.
Before being drafted, Puljujarvi had dominated in the Liiga (Finland’s top professional league) but he had never played stateside on the smaller NHL-sized rink before. Anyone who has ever played on the bigger Olympic-sized ice will tell you that there is just way more space to maneuver. Players transitioning to the NHL-sized ice sometimes have trouble with the increased pace of the game- when there is less ice there is less time to react to an opponent. In Edmonton, Puljujarvi was never really given his shot at playing with teammates that were drafted at his level. Jesse spent very little time playing alongside Connor McDavid or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Jesse instead found himself slotted in most nights on the 3rd line. With that being said, the Oilers didn’t really ever allow Puljujarvi the ice time he needed to be able to get comfortable with the smaller ice surface. Instead, the Oilers were quick to send him down to their American Hockey League affiliate- the Bakersfield Condors- when they felt that he wasn’t progressing as fast as they would have liked. Puljujarvi spent parts of three seasons bouncing from the AHL to the NHL back to the AHL, etc. During this time, Puljujarvi progressively got more and more frustrated with how he was being handled by the Oilers’ organization, so much so that Jesse asked the Oilers for a trade multiple times to which the Oilers refused to ever grant his request.
With tempers flaring at the start of this season, Jesse felt that his voice was falling on deaf ears and so he decided to make his move. Puljujarvi refused to play for the Oilers’ organization and decided to instead head back to his native Finland to play for his old team Karpat. Over the course of this season, Puljujarvi was able to regain his confidence and once again enjoy playing the game he fell in love with as a kid. Jesse totaled 24 goals and 29 assists, for 53 points over the course of the 56 games he played for the Karpat. To go along with those totals, Puljujarvi managed a plus 30 average on the season as well. These numbers ranked amongst the best in the Liiga. With Puljujarvi regaining his stride, you would think the Oilers and he would look to rejoin forces, right? Not so much. The time away from Edmonton apparently was not long enough for Puljujarvi to let bygones be bygones. Jesse still had that bitter copper taste in his mouth left over from all the bad blood between the two sides which led to him deciding to remain in Finland, and he then resigned with Karpat for the 2020-2021 season. Puljujarvi was smart enough though to sign the deal with an opt-out clause that would allow him to return to the NHL at any point next season in case his rights were ever to be dealt by the Oilers to another NHL club.
Jesse Puljujarvi is a big-bodied winger who uses his size and skating ability to be able to skate by his opponents like they are standing still. Jesse is extremely strong on the puck and is able to use pure strength to fight off defenders while he is stick-handling past them. Unlike most European players, Puljujarvi does not shy away from physical play. Actually, it’s just the opposite: It tends to make him dig in and play that much harder! Jesse has been known to be a net-front presence in the past and is good at it. Puljujarvi also possess a hard, accurate shot that he makes looks almost effortless. His coaches in the Liiga say he is one of the hardest working players on the team and is a good teammate.
So how might the Flyers go about trying to acquire this Finnish force? Where this writer might start is offering Edmonton up something they don’t have: Defense and goaltending. Luckily, these are two areas where the Flyers have extreme depth (Two or three mid-level prospects might be enough to get a deal done). This trade should not cost the Flyers any NHL level player that they don’t already want to get rid of because of the well-known feud between Puljujarvi and the Oilers. Edmonton could not afford to add salary in any way, seeing that they have Center Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to resign. Even if the Oilers received a call regarding their former 1st round pick, if they were to ask for great talent in return they don’t really have much of a bargaining point. Edmonton has tried to make nice of the situation recently, but Jesse is still at home in his native Finland. At this point, Edmonton would be wise to just take what they can get for Puljujarvi and cut their losses.
If the Flyers were to acquire Puljujarvi, they will not have to offer him the world and play him on the top line next year. What they should do is treat him like a new prospect and give him the opportunity of a fresh start by offering him the chance to come to training camp, work hard, and earn an NHL roster spot on a true cup-contending team. A team that isn’t going to expect him to come in right away and score 50 goals a year (like the Oilers did). As for Jesse’s previous attitude shown towards the Oilers, it would be a thing of the past as soon as he steps into a locker room with a real NHL-level head coach like (Alain Vigneault), who doesn’t care how talented a player is or how good his numbers were at one time in his career: If they don’t produce and/or play his style of hockey then they will find themselves sitting the bench or residing in the press box. This trade would not only down size the Flyers’ current prospect pool (allowing room for new players that are still yet to be drafted), it would permit Philadelphia to be able to acquire a potential low-risk high-reward future star who possess great size, strength, and goal-scoring abilities who is still only just 22 years of age.
