Jesse "Big Head" Puljujarvi has not hurt the Pittsburgh Penguins since joining the team, but Adam Pro Toe says needing to sign him in the first place was grasping at straws.
The Pittsburgh Penguins have been one of the NHL’s biggest disappointments this season.
That’s in spite of another excellent season from captain Sidney Crosby and solid contributions from veterans Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and first-year Penguin Erik Karlsson. But even small achievements – such as the signing of veteran winger Jesse Puljujarvi – are ultimately condemnations of their bleak over all picture. Puljujarvi hasn’t necessarily hurt the Pens since signing a two-year, $1.6-million contract with the organisation, but he hasn’t blown the doors off anyone, either. After looking good in the AHL, the 25-year-old Finn has played six NHL games for Pittsburgh ahead of Tuesday night and has yet to produce a single point. Part of the reason for that is averaging just 11:00 of ice time per game, but it’s clear now why there wasn’t a bidding war for Puljujarvi’s services. Instead, the Puljujarvi signing has made it clear – the Penguins haven't surrounded their core with secondary players who can move the needle consistently. The team’s drafting and development group has not produced enough talent to augment what they have in their marquee players. Even with the contributions they’re getting from Crosby, Malkin, Letang and Karlsson, it’s not nearly enough to keep them in the thick of the Metropolitan Division playoff race. Indeed, it's easy to draft at the top and take generational talents such as Crosby and Malkin. But to avoid the pain of the salary cap's constraints, you need sustained asset generation from within the organisation. And for too long now, the Pens haven't been able to do that. They’ve got veterans who are slowing down, such as Jeff Carter (six goals, eight points in 46 games), underachieving forwards, including Rickard Rakell (five goals, 20 points in 40 games) and average younger players, including Drew O’Connor (six goals, 17 points in 52 games) and Valtteri Puustinen (one goal, eight points in 22 games). This is one of the reasons why GM Kyle Dubas went out and claimed forward Matthew Phillips off waivers from the Washington Capitals. The team is grasping at straws, and while the Pens have had some injuries to deal with, virtually every NHL team has had the same issue – and none of them look as flat as the Penguins do at the moment. Puljujarvi may soon settle in and start putting up decent numbers from Pittsburgh’s bottom-six group of forwards, but they need much more than that if they’re going to leapfrog up the Eastern Conference wild-card race. Their struggles up to this point mean that not only do they have to drastically improve the rest of the way this year, but they need more than one of the teams currently above them in the standings to collapse. In other words, the Penguins’ fate is no longer solely in their own hands. And that should frighten Pens fans tremendously. Puljujarvi is no saviour, and neither is anyone available to the Pens on the trade market. Dubas now faces the pressure, and if he trades star winger Jake Guntzel and doesn’t come away with pieces to help Pittsburgh win this season, the pressure will increase exponentially. It sure feels like there are going to be more bad days than good days imminently ahead for Pittsburgh, and it all can be traced back to the draft and development not producing top talent to augment their line up. Until that changes, players like Puljujarvi are going to be a band-aid solution to a blood-gushing problem.
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