In another forum a few couple years ago we looked into the way Puljujarvi had been bounced around the lineup and up and down between the AHL and NHL, how he was forced to "earn" his playing time, etc. I took a look at several young European wingers who entered the league just prior to Puljujarvi and how much ice they got with skill centers, and the difference is stark - even though Jesse was putting up similar numbers.

Here are each winger's 5v5 P/60 with their top 2 centers:

DRAFT +1
Rantanen w/ MacKinnon: 0.00 (0:43)
Rantanen w/ Duchene: 0.00 (29:09)
Pastrnak w/ Bergeron: 1.31 (45:49)
Pastrnak w/ Krejci: 2.55 (141:15)
Nylander: NO NHL TOI
Puljujarvi w/ McDavid: 2.86 (84:01)
Puljujarvi w/ Draisaitl: 1.67 (107:28)

Rantanen and Nylander did nothing, Toronto smartly leaving Nylander in the AHL for the entire year. Puljujarvi’s numbers were better than Pastrnak’s.

DRAFT +2
Rantanen w/ MacKinnon: 1.66 (684:55)
Rantanen w/ Duchene: 0.86 (350:34)
Pastrnak w/ Bergeron: 1.96 (61:19)
Pastrnak w/ Krejci: 2.04 (499:06)
Nylander w/ Kadri: 0.00 (4:57)
Nylander w/ Bozak: 0.00 (1.45)
Puljujarvi w/ McDavid: 1.87 (256:57)
Puljujarvi w/ Draisaitl: 2.37 (101:22)

Note the differences? Rantanen gets glued to the top-6 despite not achieving much, Pastrnak is playing with skill but also not getting top defensive assignments with Bergeron, while Nylander is playing on the 3rd line after having played well for the first half of the season in the AHL. Meanwhile Puljujarvi is not getting consistent linemates anywhere, despite scoring a an equal or better rate than his peers. Nice development plan.

DRAFT +3
Rantanen w/ MacKinnon: 2.28 (946:52)
Rantanen w/ Duchene: 0.00 (12:48)
Pastrnak w/ Bergeron: 2.22 (541:19)
Pastrnak w/ Krejci: 1.54 (429:40)
Nylander w/ Kadri: 2.17 (360:06)
Nylander w/ Matthews: 1.82 (624:42)
Puljujarvi w/ McDavid: 1.80 (66:46)
Puljujarvi w/ Draisaitl: 0.00 (74:25)

Here we see where the other team's development plans worked out, as all 3 are getting consistent top-6 ice time and all 3 are delivering consistent results.
Unfortunately we see Puljujarvi getting jacked around still. Remember that JP was playing with a hip issue all year, until the team finally pulled the plug on his season and ordered surgery.

No question that Puljujarvi has ability, he put up similar or better numbers to these 3 very good players when healthy despite the screw up that was his development plan in Edmonton. I think there are multiple GM's that see a whole lot of untapped potential in this young man, they just aren't sure if they can undo the damage that's already been done. Jesse playing well in Finland has helped, but it's not the NHL and there will still be some reserves.

Here's an article that will give you some idea what the odds are of your picks turning into good players:

https://www.coppernblue.com/platform/amp/2011/4/4/2082829/nhl-draft-pick-value-first-round

Even if this is a really deep draft (the jury is still out on that), the probability of the #18 pick becoming a top player is just under 30%.

So the question becomes: what are Puljujarvi's chances of becoming a top player? I'll look at his 19- and 21-year-old seasons to get some idea what his future could look like. I'm not using his 18-year-old season because there are so few comparables (Hughes and Kakko fit but that story isn't written yet), and I'm ignoring his 20-year-old season because he played with the nagging hip issue all year which finally ended his season prematurely.

As a 19-year-old Puljujarvi posted 0.31 P/GP in the NHL. Here are all the 19-year-old's who have posted +/- 0.05 P/GP from 00-01 to 17-18:

Beauvillier
Boedker
PM Bouchard
Josefson
Latendresse
Lindholm
Couterier
Lucic
O'Reilly
Jost
J Staal
Zacha
Turris
Johansen
Puljujarvi
Seguin
Tlusty
Burmistrov
Smith-Pelly
Weiss
McCann

Of those 20 player (not including Puljujarvi), 10 of them became "top" players under the criteria listed in the link, or 50%. The jury is still out on 4 of them (Beauvillier, Jost, Zacha and McCann), so if you exclude them you're left with 10 of 16, or 62.5%.

Now we turn to Jesse's 21-year-old season. He posted 53 points in 56 Liiga games and led the league in shots / corsi, etc. Using an NHLe conversion factor of 0.45, his equivalent P/GP in the NHL would have been 0.43. Using the same criteria as before (+/- 0.05 P/GP), we can see that 59 players matched at 21 years old. I'm not going to list them out, but you can check out the list here:

https://www.hockey-reference.com/play-index/psl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=single&year_min=2001&year_max=2018&season_start=1&season_end=-1&rookie=N&age_min=21&age_max=21&pos=F&is_playoffs=N&c1stat=points_per_game&c1comp=gt&c1val=0.38&c2stat=points_per_game&c2comp=lt&c2val=0.48&c3stat=games_played&c3comp=gt&c3val=40&threshhold=5&order_by=points_per_game

How many of them became "top" NHLers? Thirty, with the story not yet written with 5 of them: Dvorak, Niederreiter, McCann, Milano and Lehkonen. Dividing 30 into 54 gets us 55.5%.

I don't think it's unreasonable to conclude that Jesse Puljujarvi has >50% chance of becoming a top-6 forward in the NHL, which is a similar probability to that of a #4 - 7 pick in an average draft. I'm not going to say he's worth a top-10 pick in the upcoming draft because I don't think his ceiling is as high as those guys. There's a vast difference between being top-6 (Milan Lucic) and being top-6 (Nicklas Backstrom or Mitch Marner).

If Holland is indeed asking for a mid- to late-1st as has been speculated, I can certainly understand why. Puljujarvi has a higher floor than a typical pick in this range (he's far more likely to become a top-6 forward) and about as high a ceiling.

Carolina aren't giving up the 18th overall pick in the deepest draft since 03 for someone who's been in Europe this year, and didn't exactly perform well when he was in North America. No way.

no one is going to trade a 1st for him. You could probably get Brock McGinn

I stated that Puljujarvi isn't worth a top-10 pick in the 2020 draft and I believe that. I would rather have Rossi, Raymond or Perfetti in the Oilers system and it's not close. But in doing this research I've come to the realization that I - and the vast majority or posters here - probably overvalue picks.

For instance, when my research above showed that Puljujarvi had a similar probability of becoming a top-6 player as a typical #4-7 pick, misguided Leafs fans freaked out. So here is a look at all the forwards that have been drafted in the 4-7 range in the 15 years looking back from the seminal 2015 draft, along with their GP to date and their career P/GP.

Marner: 300, 0.97
Zacha: 266, 0.41
Bennett: 364, 0.35
Dal Colle: 85, 0.20
Virtanen: 269, 0.34
Lindholm: 525, 0.61
Monahan: 541, 0.76
Strome: 491, 0.52
Zibanejad: 548, 0.70
Scheifele: 519, 0.86
Johansen: 660, 0.67
Niederreiter: 601, 0.48
Connolly: 496, 0.38
Skinner: 720, 0.65
Kane: 713, 0.64
Schenn: 658, 0.65
Kadri: 612, 0.64
Folatov: 53, 0.26
Wilson: 632, 0.45
Gagner: 844, 0.54
Voracek: 915, 0.76
Backstrom: 956, 0.97
Kessel: 1066, 0.81
Brassard: 852, 0.57
Okposo: 800, 0.63
Pouliot: 625, 0.42
Brule: 299, 0.32
Skille: 368, 0.23
Ladd: 950, 0.57
Wheeler: 931, 0.82
Olesz: 365, 0.37
Zherdev: 421, 0.62
Vanek: 1029, 0.77
Michalek: 747, 0.60
Upshall: 759, 0.38
Lupul: 701, 0.60
Weiss: 732, 0.58
Chitsov: 196, 0.31
Koivu: 1028, 0.69

That's 39 forwards take with picks 4-7 in 15 years. Let's rearrange them by performance thus:

Superstar (1.00+ P/GP): 0/39 = 0%
Elite (0.75 - 0.99): 8/39 = 20.5%
Top-6 (0.50 - 0.74): 17/39 = 43.6%
Bottom-6 (< 0.50): 14/39 = 35.9%

High picks are great, but (cap aside) if you have a chance to trade your (say) #7 pick for an established player in his early 20's who scores 0.75 P/GP, you'd be best to make that deal.

Puljujärvi for #18 overall... I laughed so hard that I nearly peed.

The term "delusional" seems to best apply here.

Holland can demand whatever he wants.

At the end of the day, if his demand is that excessive, he will have a long wait until Pulju's rights expires.

No one is giving that kind of return for him. No one.

Thank you for presenting a cogent argument. You present it well, and I know you knew you were going to get a lot of criticism for presenting it. As a writer, I admire both elements.

On a note related only because you have it in here, why do we owe you a third-round pick?

That's mean, they could have McGinn and a late-round pick xD

M. Geekie and a 3rd to 5th Rd pick.

still a big no from Ottawa for Russell, unless you include some more draft picks, players.

Thanks, appreciate your comments.

And I meant to have Matt Benning in that trade.

https://www.capfriendly.com/forums/thread/332796&post_id=1467399

You can't even make up your own mind. Why try to change mine?

Everyone knows he's really going to the Kings. I just wanted to switch things up a bit.

Well, you and I don't always see eye-to-eye, so I gotta give you props when you've earned and deserve them.

And I like the Benning trade.

This is a used car salesmen pitch for a busted up sportscar. It's performance was supposed to be good but the engine doesn't work properly (Pulli's results) but check out the paint job (Drafted high).

"Trust me he's with a 1st rounder because he's more of a sure thing than a pick". Then why are you trading him? Next up is some sort of insanely suspect take on why Larsson is actually a top pair defender.

He isn't, he sucks and Pulli is as close to a bust as they come at this point. He isn't worth a 2nd. Just like Hosang and Anderson in New York. Being a former highly toughted 1st rounder means nothing 4 years after their draft year.

It's interesting that you always have to make **** up when arguing with me. Could it be that you don't have anything to back up your biased opinion so you just have to lie? This strawman shtick is getting old: anyone with half a brain would know that I never presented Puljujarvi's draft position as a method of evaluation.

Stupid is as stupid does, I guess. Carry on...

Well I look into Geekie career and honestly if you forget that one player was a former 1st Rd'er and the other was a former 3rd Rd'er, as it stands today I'd say Geekie is better.

@CD282
I read that article some time ago and led me to do additional research.
I think if one refers to this site https://www.broadstreethockey.com/2013/4/25/4262594/nhl-draft-pick-value-trading-up
one will see it would require 29th, 30th and 31st to move up to the 7th OA.
This site http://statsportsconsulting.com/main/wp-content/uploads/DraftPickValueChart2016_Schuckers.pdf
is a bit different putting more emphasis on the first over all, but the 7th for the same picks are about the same.
I enjoy reading posts as yours.
As a Sabre's fan, you are giving me hope that our 8th over all pick of 2017 still could be a top six performer in the NHL.

yep, along with Draisaitl for what is owed to Kovalchuk and Pfaneuf so it keeps the same cap hit.

They should have.

Dunno about that. That pick turned out to be Jarvis. And the 18th pick was Mercer. Currently I'd probably keep both over Pulju.