Oilers send Puljujarvi to AHL, waive Gustavsson

[GSD]

He will be back this year.

[donpaulo]

I think its fairly obvious that the Oilers want what is best for JP and perhaps with some of the recent moves by the club decided to make the change in hopes for improving their ROI.
Making a bad decision is clearly a mistake, but failing to learn from that and continuing to repeat it is worse.
So the club pulled the trigger and the kid gets some prime time to improve his game and hopefully forces Edmonton to make room for him with the big club at some point down the road.
Could or should the Oil have done it sooner ? yeah probably but they got it right this time and should be thankful for making the right choice, even if it was delayed.

[Jouko-Pouko]

I was thinking more along the lines of players that have their their first year wasted but sign a long term deal at a cap friendly hit.

A deal they likely wouldn't have signed if they were in the NHL since day 1?

Do players really get long-term contracts after just two full seasons in the NHL? I mean, not even Panarin got one, and he's been a beast. I think it's pretty common practice to use a bridge deal if player hasn't played 3 full seasons in the NHL. The players may not even want a long-term contract if they feel like they haven't proven themselves enough because they know they could earn millions more by signing a bridge deal first.

Would you sign 8x$5M contract now if you think you could sign 8x$8M in a year or two? That's what the player could be thinking at least. But maybe some players want to avoid taking unnecessary risks and sign that cheaper contract anyway to get long-term security. I'm just saying it's not automatic. (This used to work perfectly in "Be a GM" mode in the NHL game a couple of years ago. Sign every young player to a cheap 8 year contract - there was no risk for the GM in that game. )

[Mr. Guru]

I said long term deals not max deals.

Kinda like what JVR got as his second contract. 6 years worth 25ish. He was never sent down or anything like that though.

Niederreiter got dicked around too. But again, only played 9 games before he got sent down. His second contract is a beauty for the team. 8M over 3 years.

Draisaitl, for example, had his first year burned. Came back his second year and exploded for 51 points in 72 games. And now he's hovering around the .85 ppg. If that first year he spent the whole year in the AHL, he would have had 51 points in 72 games as a rookie. This year he would have 35 in 42, so far. And next year, if he keeps up this pace would be close to a PPG, or something similar.

He would be due for a much larger contract, no?

You could also argue that his first year was a big learning process and sending him down (while burning a year) was a positive in terms of develop. So at the end of the day, who knows? However, would be nice to see after a decade of data and hundreds of players to compare.

As far as signing a 8x5 contract now or waiting 2 years.....This depends on a lot of situations. Am I single, married/family? I'll take the guaranteed 30M now rather than risk an injury in the next two years and be out of the game completely. Does my wife love the city? Does she have family in town? So many factors.

EDIT: Just thought of Bjugstad who had his first year burned as well. He signed a nice long term deal too. 6 years 25M (similar to JVR).
Trocheck too. Only played 20 games his first year. Just signed a 6 year 28M deal.
Hyman for the Leafs last year only played 16 games as a rookie. Can't see him demanding much after this year.

[lobo1969]

Something that has not been mentioned here and hardly mentioned in the media is the off ice considerations that Oiler management had with JP.
He is an 18 year old Euro who has never lived in north America and his english was marginal coming over. Management may have wanted to keep JP close IN Edmonton to help him to adjust to "semi independent" living in a new culture/country, immersed in the english language, and being a first time pro. I'm sure they wanted to mentor him the right way inside and outside the dressing room. All these things are a shock to system for any individual and can be overwhelming never mind the fact that you have to learn to play hockey at the NHL level. Maybe its just now after these first few months that management and JP are both comfortable that he can handle living in an independant AHL lifestyle and go down and be an instant team-leader in Bakersfield.
Maybe its these intangibles that were more important for the organization and the player than to actual on ice development for the first half of the season. Picking apart management on how a possible contract situation is being handled is not the be all end all here.

- - - Updated - - -

Something that has not been mentioned here and hardly mentioned in the media is the off ice considerations that Oiler management had with JP.
He is an 18 year old Euro who has never lived in north America and his english was marginal coming over. Management may have wanted to keep JP close IN Edmonton to help him to adjust to "semi independent" living in a new culture/country, immersed in the english language, and being a first time pro. I'm sure they wanted to mentor him the right way inside and outside the dressing room. All these things are a shock to system for any individual and can be overwhelming never mind the fact that you have to learn to play hockey at the NHL level. Maybe its just now after these first few months that management and JP are both comfortable that he can handle living in an independant AHL lifestyle and go down and be an instant team-leader in Bakersfield.
Maybe its these intangibles that were more important for the organization and the player than to actual on ice development for the first half of the season. Picking apart management on how a possible contract situation is being handled is not the be all end all here.

[rataylor22]

Something that has not been mentioned here and hardly mentioned in the media is the off ice considerations that Oiler management had with JP.
He is an 18 year old Euro who has never lived in north America and his english was marginal coming over. Management may have wanted to keep JP close IN Edmonton to help him to adjust to "semi independent" living in a new culture/country, immersed in the english language, and being a first time pro. I'm sure they wanted to mentor him the right way inside and outside the dressing room. All these things are a shock to system for any individual and can be overwhelming never mind the fact that you have to learn to play hockey at the NHL level. Maybe its just now after these first few months that management and JP are both comfortable that he can handle living in an independant AHL lifestyle and go down and be an instant team-leader in Bakersfield.
Maybe its these intangibles that were more important for the organization and the player than to actual on ice development for the first half of the season. Picking apart management on how a possible contract situation is being handled is not the be all end all here.

All of these and post like this are valid points, and they're also ignoring the fact that all of this could have still been accomplished without the last week of this arrangement wherby the Oilers games played went from 39 to 42. Which is the real issue. There can be legitimate tangible value to burning the first year of ELC. There is no value to burning a year of RFA status.

[doulos]

Something that has not been mentioned here and hardly mentioned in the media is the off ice considerations that Oiler management had with JP.
He is an 18 year old Euro who has never lived in north America and his english was marginal coming over. Management may have wanted to keep JP close IN Edmonton to help him to adjust to "semi independent" living in a new culture/country, immersed in the english language, and being a first time pro. I'm sure they wanted to mentor him the right way inside and outside the dressing room. All these things are a shock to system for any individual and can be overwhelming never mind the fact that you have to learn to play hockey at the NHL level. Maybe its just now after these first few months that management and JP are both comfortable that he can handle living in an independant AHL lifestyle and go down and be an instant team-leader in Bakersfield.
Maybe its these intangibles that were more important for the organization and the player than to actual on ice development for the first half of the season. Picking apart management on how a possible contract situation is being handled is not the be all end all here.

Yes, I realize more everyday that pretty much all of us here don't have a clue about what it takes to run an NHL team. There are so many dynamics at play from finances to actual real people on the team, and we have no clue what's going on.

All that really matters is that the GM gets real on ice results, and Chiarelli has done a great job this year in the one metric that actually matters - winning games. No complaints here.

[Axeman33]

With Toronto claiming McElhinney, and Gustavsson clearing waivers today, I assume we will see Broissot recalled shortly.

[Jouko-Pouko]

I said long term deals not max deals.

Kinda like what JVR got as his second contract. 6 years worth 25ish. He was never sent down or anything like that though.

Niederreiter got dicked around too. But again, only played 9 games before he got sent down. His second contract is a beauty for the team. 8M over 3 years.

Draisaitl, for example, had his first year burned. Came back his second year and exploded for 51 points in 72 games. And now he's hovering around the .85 ppg. If that first year he spent the whole year in the AHL, he would have had 51 points in 72 games as a rookie. This year he would have 35 in 42, so far. And next year, if he keeps up this pace would be close to a PPG, or something similar.

He would be due for a much larger contract, no?

You could also argue that his first year was a big learning process and sending him down (while burning a year) was a positive in terms of develop. So at the end of the day, who knows? However, would be nice to see after a decade of data and hundreds of players to compare.

As far as signing a 8x5 contract now or waiting 2 years.....This depends on a lot of situations. Am I single, married/family? I'll take the guaranteed 30M now rather than risk an injury in the next two years and be out of the game completely. Does my wife love the city? Does she have family in town? So many factors.

EDIT: Just thought of Bjugstad who had his first year burned as well. He signed a nice long term deal too. 6 years 25M (similar to JVR).
Trocheck too. Only played 20 games his first year. Just signed a 6 year 28M deal.
Hyman for the Leafs last year only played 16 games as a rookie. Can't see him demanding much after this year.

Personally, I've never understood those 6 year contracts after ELC. The player becomes UFA at the age of 27. Why not make it 8 years and keep him until he's 29 at least? Or first give him 3 years and then you'll still have him as RFA at the age of 24. Both of these options seem better to me than 6 years. But maybe there's something I'm missing.

I think Bjugstad and Trocheck are good examples of cases where the player decided to take long-term security instead of maximizing his salary during his playing career. Like I said, that happens as well. But not everyone is willing to do it. Some players want to earn as much as they can because their playing career is very short and there's not much they can do after it.

Would you sign Hyman to 7 or 8 years now? Or even 6? Probably not because you don't have enough of a sample size yet. That's also a problem for a team - they could get a player on a cheap long-term contract because they're not that proven but they don't want to take that risk.

[chuckcouples]

With Toronto claiming McElhinney, and Gustavsson clearing waivers today, I assume we will see Broissot recalled shortly.

Gustavsson is apparently backing up tonight. The Oilers will figure out what they are going to do after that. They have until their 10th games or 30 days before he would have to clear waivers again if they wanted to send him down.

[theIceWookie]

I was thinking more along the lines of players that have their their first year wasted but sign a long term deal at a cap friendly hit.

A deal they likely wouldn't have signed if they were in the NHL since day 1?

UFA is the bigger one, and as we've come to understand the CBA more and more and our understanding of team desires and focuses has grown, teams seem to care more about losing a year towards UFA status than an ELC year. There are some reasons for burning off an ELC early on. The Leafs did it intentionally last with Nylander to ensure that they didn't have Marner, Matthews and Nylander all have expiring contracts on the same year. There used to be an idea that using an ELC is a cheap way to infuse cheap talent into a team and save in the cap (similar to what Chicago did with Kane and Toews and were able to win a cup at the tail end of their ELC's). But there's also an argument that burning one of those three years gives the player less leverage to work with in their second contract. If they can only point to two of the three years, tehy don't have as much leverage in negotiations.

I think sometimes it's an easy thing for fans to say "it's obvious" but I think it's more complicated than its often made out. Puljujarvi seems like an odd situation, but I'm wondering if there is something we don't understand going on. Maybe he had a contract in Finland that only allowed him to be out of the contract by playing in the NHL. So the Oilers COULDN'T send him down to the AHL any earlier until a point when he had burtn a full year off UFA status. So they're sacrificing longer term leverage to help his development. That's pure specualtion by me, but it's the only thing I can think of right now.

There has to be some reason for this. It's too obvious an issue for it to be as stupid as it appears. Because why the hell wouldn't you want Puljujarvi in the AHL as soon as its obvious he isn't nearly as polished as hoped, especially when you can slide the first year and not burn the ELC or a UFA year.

[Mr. Guru]

But there's also an argument that burning one of those three years gives the player less leverage to work with in their second contract. If they can only point to two of the three years, tehy don't have as much leverage in negotiations.

I think I stand on this side of the argument but, again, I'd love to see some date behind this.

But I agree with your post. Same views.

[JagrBomb]

howcome there is so much back and forth on the burning of the ELC year when it's the burning of the RFA year that is the main reason why the Oilers management ****ed up?

apologies if this has already been answered as i haven't read all of the posts. is there any legit reason why this was not a poor decision by management or can we all agree they screwed up again?

- - - Updated - - -

howcome there is so much back and forth on the burning of the ELC year when it's the burning of the RFA year that is the main reason why the Oilers management ****ed up?

apologies if this has already been answered as i haven't read all of the posts. is there any legit reason why this was not a poor decision by management or can we all agree they screwed up again?

[Jouko-Pouko]

howcome there is so much back and forth on the burning of the ELC year when it's the burning of the RFA year that is the main reason why the Oilers management ****ed up?

apologies if this has already been answered as i haven't read all of the posts. is there any legit reason why this was not a poor decision by management or can we all agree they screwed up again?

I totally agree. Nothing wrong with burning the 1st year from his ELC, he needed more than 9 games at the NHL level this year. Wasting one RFA year is the real issue and no one has figured out any valid reason for that. Maybe the management knows they won't be around when Pulju is about to hit UFA.

[rataylor22]

howcome there is so much back and forth on the burning of the ELC year when it's the burning of the RFA year that is the main reason why the Oilers management ****ed up?

apologies if this has already been answered as i haven't read all of the posts. is there any legit reason why this was not a poor decision by management or can we all agree they screwed up again?

People willing to make excuses for management seem to have settled on the concrete option of "their must be something". So. That's where we've gotten to.