Patrick Russell has signed a new contract with the Edmonton Oilers.

Decent ahl player

EDM needs some "decent NHL players" now. They desperately need Puljujarvi and/or Yamamoto to break out big time next season. Evan Bouchard on the backend wouldn't hurt either!

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WOW.

This guy has solid AHL stats .... definitely a prospect to watch !

OMG he's 26 .... I retract my statement.

Some players break into the league in late 20's and do pretty well. Not saying Russell is that but can happen just look at Derek Ryan's career path

Its true ... but it's an exception to the rule.

Connor Brown would have an 90% chance of getting 20+ goals and 50+ points on McDavids line next year.

Don't be fooled by his stats. He only played 13.5 minutes a night this year and ....

- 11.5 of those minutes were at even strength
- 2 of those minutes were on the penalty kill
- 0 of those minutes were on the power play
- All of those minutes were in a shut-down role
- He already scored 20 goals in his rookie season

That's what happens when Marner and Nylander are ahead of you at RW and you're stuck sharing the leftovers with Kapanen.

Edmonton should trade Puljujarvi for him.

I'd probably make that trade right now, but I'm not sure EDM is willing to abandon a #4 overall pick. Has EDM drafted poorly, or what? Take away McDavid and Hall, two obvious #1's, and you're left w/ a lot of underachievers.

It definitely seems like they have drafted poorly ... but I think they're worse at player development than they are drafting.

Almost all of their 1st round picks are immediately thrown into the fire and expected to be a savior ... then they're under so much pressure to produce that the rest of their game doesn't improve until their like 25 (or at all). Examples = Hall, Nuge, Yakupov, Eberle, Gagne, Puljujarvi, Schultz.

Once they leave, they reach their true potential. Similar to Arizona. They can't develop for ****.

So how does an organization like EDM address this player development problem? Is it just a matter of hiring new coaches, or is this more of an upper management problem? I mean, Puljujarvi has been a total disaster so far. His expectations were extremely high. Most of the high picks from 2016 are already contributing significantly.

it was funny to come back to this in 2021

in what way is this funny?

JP turned out fine

Yes, he certainly has. 2 years ago, when I made that comment, he was a huge failure. I guess allowing him to go home to play in Finland was a great move.