Jesse Puljujärvi: Should He Stay Or Should He Go?

The Edmonton Oilers have officially signed forward Jesse Puljujarvi to a 1 year, $3 million contract extension. With this signing the team and player avoided salary arbitration. Now that this deal is done, the question now is will he be traded or will he stay an Edmonton Oiler.

Ever since coming into the league the 4th overall pick in the 2016 draft has had a whirlwind adventure with the Oilers. He was forced into the line-up way to soon in my option. Since then there has seemed to be a rift between the player and this team.

Ever since Ken Holland has become the GM Jesse Puljujarvi and the Oilers relationship has appeared to get better though. Jesse Puljujarvi re-signed a two year extension with the team and came back from Europe to play with the Oilers.

Why would the Edmonton Oilers Trade Jesse Puljujarvi?

There are several reasons that Jesse Puljujarvi would be traded. One being the fact that the Edmonton Oilers don’t have the cap space to keep him. According to PuckPedia with Klefbom and Smith on LTIR they only have $2.67 million of cap space with RFA’s Yamamoto and McLeod to re-sign.

If the Edmonton Oilers were to trade Jesse Puljujarvi for a draft pick that would open up an extra $3 million in space on that number. Now that he has a signed contract another team will be more likely to trade for him. A team may have been hesitant to trade him and have a too large cap hit.

If the Edmonton Oilers move on from Jesse Puljujarvi I think no matter what they get back the Oilers will lose the trade. Puljujarvi is a skilled player with a large body, this type of players don’t come around very often. This is why I think the Oilers should keep him.

If the Edmonton Oilers keep Jesse Puljujarvi, how do they solve the cap issues?

As I mentioned above one of the main reasons the Edmonton Oilers may trade Jesse Puljujarvi is to clear cap space. In order to stay cap compliant the Oilers are going to have to move a player out via trade.

I believe in that case the Edmonton Oilers will move on from Warren Foegele. Foegele currently has a cap hit of $2.75 million. If they flip him for a pick then Dylan Holloway could easily slide into Foegele’s role on the third line.

Nothing against Foegele, I think he is a serviceable player and filled that spot very well. It is just in the cap era you need to make space where you can. He is a player other teams would like, so trading him would make sense.

I don’t know what Holland has planned for the rest of the offseason, but there is still work for him to do. His next job is to re-sign Yamamoto and McLeod. Both of these players are important to this line-up. After that he is going to have to do some quick thinking on order to fit under the cap.

Hopefully in the next couple weeks all the moves will be done and we can start looking and line-ups and projections for this coming season.