If Canadiens Wait, They Could Get Puljujärvi On The Cheap

If the Montreal Canadiens or any other NHL team want to acquire newly signed Edmonton Oilers winger Jesse Puljujärvi on the NHL trade market, it could cost them anywhere from a 2023 second to fifth round pick.

In a recent Twitter poll by longtime Edmonton Journal columnist David Staples that asked fans what the Oilers could net for Jesse Puljujärvi on the NHL trade market, 43.6 percent voted on a second round pick. However, 35.8 percent believed that the fourth overall pick from the 2016 NHL Draft could be had for anywhere from a third to fifth round pick in 2023.

What could Jesse Puljujarvi bring right now in a trade?

— David Staples (@dstaples) August 5, 2022

As reported here, via an NHL executive source, two weeks ago, the Montreal Canadiens were one of a number of teams that inquired on the availability and cost of Jesse Puljujärvi heading into at and in the immediate days following the 2022 NHL Draft in Montreal on July 7-8. After the Oilers and Puljujärvi avoided arbitration and agreed on a one-year, $3 million contract an NHL scout speculated that Puljujärvi would be even more attractive on the NHL trade market with a fixed cap hit. There’s nothing new to report on the Canadiens’ interest in the 24-year-old, 6-foot-4, 204-pound winger since then but Staples provided some solid intel and insight on where things stand with Puljujärvi and the Oilers right now.

As the well-respected hockey scribe pointed out, it’s very likely that Puljujärvi will become a cap casualty for the cap-strapped Oilers whose GM Ken Holland, admitted may have to go with 21-22 players on their roster to start the season, if a salary cap dump on the NHL trade market isn’t made before October.

‘Holland noted he might run with fewer than 23 players on the NHL roster this year to help deal with the hard cap. “That’s a possibility,” Holland said, noting the cap is only going up slowly, just $1 million a year. “We will probably have to run it on 21 or 22 players.”

Players at the bottom end of the roster tend to cost $750,000 to $1.0 million each, so Holland could maybe save $1.5 to $2.0 million this year against the cap in this manner, if he strictly adhered to a 21 man roster.

But it could be a trade will have to be made, with a Foegele, a Puljujarvi or a Tyson Barrie traded out of town, and with the Oilers getting little in return given how many teams are looking to move out money and how few teams have the cap space to take on new salary, even if they’re inclined to do so.’

Staples listed the Canadiens (‘depending on what happens with Carey Price’), as a potential NHL trade suitor for Puljujärvi, as well as the Arizona Coyotes, Buffalo Sabres, Anaheim Ducks, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Winnipeg Jets, and Ottawa Senators.

The read here is that if Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes or any other NHL GM are still interested in Puljujärvi, they would be better off to waiting it out until training camp because Holland will feel the weight of the salary cap even more then. Instead of a second round pick for Puljujärvi on the NHL trade market, Holland may have to settle for that third to fifth round range at that point.