Edmonton Oilers Talk: Matheson on Puljujarvi – “I Don’t Know If the European Skills Translate to the North American Rink.”

Breaking News! Long-time Edmonton Oilers beat writer drives European player out of town with incessant and outdated rant and then welcomes him back with another one!!!

It’s been quite a week for Post-Media’s Hall-of-fame writer Jim Matheson. It started with one of the most ridiculous hot takes I’ve seen from somebody of his ilk regarding Jesse Puljujarvi’s number change,

Excellent move to Jesse to get 98 off his back. Been saying that before he came to camp. In Edm that's not a good look, wearing 98. Only 3 NHLers (Brian Lawton, Mikhail Sergachev and Puljujarvi) have worn number. Now he'll be 13. Cogliano, Cammalleri, Ken Linseman wore 13.

— Jim Matheson (@jimmathesonnhl) January 6, 2021

Do you know what would be an excellent move? If Jim Matheson got off of Jesse Puljujarvi’s back…

Matheson did have one thing right though, only three people have worn the number 98, so where’s the outrage over Mikhail Sergachev?

Speaking of outrage, how come he’s never said anything about the plethora of players to wear Mario Lemieux’s #66? Mark Napier wore #65 for the Oilers in 1987 and as did Cooper Marody. Is that not just as disrespectful in his books? What about Josh Ho-Sang who actually donned the double-sixes for the Islanders? (Lemieux didn’t have a problem with it.) Gilbert Brule was #67 (as was Benoit Pouliot) for the Oilers for three seasons (2009-2011) and I can’t almost guarantee you that Matheson didn’t even blink at that. But, then again, that’s Mario, not Wayne.

Is it possible that we might find some multi-decade old Edmonton Journal articles lambasting Rick Dudley and Wilf Paiement for wearing #99 in the early 80s? I’m not going to say there isn’t, but wager a small fortune we won’t find one.

No it is not OK for a player to wear 98 in the city where 99 was made famous. Don’t care if it year Jesse was born. It is a bad look. just acknowledge there are lots of other numbers and he has taken 13. Good for him in his new start https://t.co/n2MIrIioxB

— Jim Matheson (@jimmathesonnhl) January 6, 2021

Notice an overriding theme amongst the names I’ve mentioned here? All North-Americans save for Sergachev and we probably shouldn’t get into what kind of feelings he may or may not have for the Russians. He was pretty high on Nail Yakupov before he was drafted (or during his career in the NHL) right?

I don’t know, maybe I’m being hard on the veteran scribe and his deal is that he’s got no time for players who are picked high in the draft and don’t pan out right away, but this vendetta that he’s seemingly on is embarrassing.

This is what was said on the latest “Oil Spills” podcast,

“His English is a lot better. Not only talking to media people, I’m sure the fans don’t really care what we think, his teammates want to carry on a conversation with Jesse as well. He’ll get the jokes now in the dressing room and stuff like that, his communication skills are better. Also, with what the coaches are saying to him. 

No exhibition games to see how he fits with Kyle Turris, but nobody is playing any exhibition games, so it’s not like the Oilers are on an island by themselves here, when the rest of the league is playing exhibition games. They’ll just have to see how he looks in the camp and in some scrimmages. 

He’s saying all the right things and he’s played well, almost a point-per-game in Finland. A bigger ice surface though. I don’t know if those European skills translate to a North American Rink, but I guess we’ll see. 

I think it’s time for Jesse to prove to people why he was the 4th overall pick. (Pierre-Luc) Dubois was picked one ahead of him by Columbus and has certainly been a much better player than Jesse has been. When you have only 37 points in 139 NHL games. whether you were rushed to the NHL or not, that’s not what a 4th overall pick is supposed to do and I think the Oilers are looking at Jesse and saying, “You went to Europe, you didn’t like it here, you didn’t give the new coaching staff or the new GM a chance to work with you last year and now you’re back and you’re saying all the right things, but that has to translate onto the ice as well.” and I think they’re looking at him and saying, “If you could just get 12 goals in 56 games and maybe 25 points or 23 points.” I think that would suffice and show that he’s on his way. (source)

I love how Matheson just glosses over the fact that Puljujarvi was rushed (and then yo-yo’d up and down between the NHL and AHL for the next three seasons) as if none of that is meaningful…

I wonder if Jim could explain to me the difference between the size of the ice surface at the AHL level and the NHL level? Is it significant? Jesse was more or less a point-per-game player down on that ice, so you’d think that maybe those European skills might’ve translated adequately, no?

Has anybody ever looked into how many 4th overall picks have played in the NHL at 18 years old full-time? Well, let’s take a look at a list of them from 1980-2020. I’ll highlight the skaters we’re looking for.

If you’re counting, that’s SIX players in FORTY YEARS who were drafted 4th overall and started their full-time NHL careers as 18yr olds. And keep in mind four of those came between 1981 and 1987 with two of those players ending up being NHL legends.

Two players in 33 years…

Could we possibly conclude that the Edmonton Oilers had more than enough information on hand to tell them that keeping Puljujarvi at 18 years old was probably a mistake? I think we could because there is forty years of evidence if you scroll above that tell us that.

Yet, to some hockey scribes, that doesn’t matter, if a player is taken 4th overall, they HAVE to produce and right off the bat or they’re busts. It doesn’t matter if they’re freshly 18 years old either, not does it matter if English is their second language and they’re from another country…

Has anybody noticed that there’s been a distinct lack of quotes regarding Pulju from the reigning NHL MVP?… McDavid, Nurse, and Nuge have all had good things to say about Jesse. Leon? Not so much. That’s pretty telling. Another thing that says a lot, none of the media types have asked either and they’d know about the relationships in the room or else why wouldn’t they ask? They had no problems asking him about Jess when he left the club and #29 didn’t have any problems answering them back then.

Those rumors of Draisaitl not being a fan of Jesse? I guess there’s some truth to them.

So, it’s nice to see Jesse has grown up a bit, I wonder if Leon will join him? I wonder if some of the media in Edmonton will join him too?

I really can’t wait for Puljujarvi to stick it to these ignorant media types and to be honest, I could care less if Connor and Leon score 200 pts between them this year, I’ll be watching Pulju and cheering him on this year.

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