Dec. 31: Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman shared that Puljujärvi has been successfully passed through waivers. The Penguins organization can now send him to the AHL unencumbered.
Dec. 30: The Penguins have placed winger Jesse Puljujärvi on waivers for the purposes of assignment to AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, per Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet.
Puljujärvi, the fourth overall pick of the 2016 draft by the Oilers, lands on waivers for the first time in his eight-year NHL career. The 26-year-old has played just once since Nov. 23, last suiting up on Dec. 7 against the Maple Leafs and serving as a healthy scratch in 14 of the Pens’ last 15 games.
That run of scratches has less to do with Puljujärvi’s performance than with the Penguins’ unwillingness to mess with a good thing. Pittsburgh has gone 10-4-1 since Thanksgiving and has thus kept its forward lineup intact on a nightly basis, with injuries allowing, understandably not leading to many opportunities for playing time for the once highly-touted Finn.
In 21 games with the Penguins this season, Puljujärvi had mustered three goals and five assists for eight points with a -2 rating. He did so while averaging 11:37 per game, up from the paltry 9:11 he received in a 22-game run with Pittsburgh last year. The 6’4″, 201-lb winger has added 30 hits and played an extremely effective game defensively. Despite starting 58.3% of his shifts at 5-on-5 in the defensive zone, the Pens still controlled 50.6% of shot attempts with Puljujärvi on the ice compared to 49.5% without him.
Those latter numbers make it a tad surprising to see him become available to the rest of the league for free, although it’s become clear there isn’t much of a role for him in Pittsburgh anymore. He’s in the back half of a two-year, $1.6MM contract he signed with the Pens in February 2024 after a lengthy stint on the free-agent market following double hip surgery.
It’s become clear that Puljujärvi likely won’t recapture the form that saw him produce a career-high 0.55 points per game back with Edmonton in 2021-22, but he remains a legitimately useful piece for a bottom-six shutdown unit. With a cap hit of $800K and no commitment past this season, it won’t be surprising if he ends up landing with another NHL club tomorrow.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
He was out played by Matt Nieto. Lol.
Nieto does his job. Aggressive forecheck and good penalty killer. JP is neither of those. Actually Tomasino is occupying JPs role.
I think Tomasino has a high ceiling, Nashville became very frustrated with his commitment/Work ethic.
He absolutely has not been outplayed by Matt Nieto. He just wasn’t born in North America and doesn’t remind Mike Sullivan of himself.
JP is a better forechecker than Nieto. Nieto can’t get the puck out of the D zone to have the ability to forecheck. But yeah, he blocks shots…because he’s constantly hemmed into the D zone.
Lol!
He was OK but had a chicken and egg kind of problem where he never played enough to find his game and show something but because he never showed something he didn’t play enough.
He needed a few injuries to give him an extended look in a consistent spot/situation and it just never happened.
The Oilers claimed Kasperi. I’d take Puljujarvi over him, so…we’ll see.
Kapanen has already scored more goals then Jesse since joining Edmonton. In half as many games
When a high draft pick plays effective bottom 6 minutes and scores at a 0.3-0.4 PPG pace they are the worst player ever but when a crappy 6th rounder plays bottom 6 minutes and chips in a point every 5 games they play their role and get a pass despite being net negative players
Yeah. All the people the last couple seasons calling Kaapo Kaako a bum, for instance, when he’d become a defensively responsible forward with perfectly acceptable bottom six scoring. Meanwhile everyone’s sporting Matt Rempe jerseys, for a guy who brings absolutely nothing to the table but provoking a fight once a game.