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 Puljujarvi’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, limiting opportunities for playing time for the once highly-touted forward.
In 21 games with the Penguins this season, Puljujarvi 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 Puljujarvi 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, $1.6M 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 Puljujarvi likely won’t recapture the form that saw him produce a career-high 0.55 points per game 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.
