Jesse Puljujarvi is the player you want to trade for

It seems quite likely that Jesse Puljujarvi has played his last game as a member of the Edmonton Oilers.

There are a number of factors at play here including Edmonton’s salary cap crunch, his status as a restricted free agent, as well as the fact there seems to be an equal amount of mutual frustration from both sides.

When there is this much smoke, there is usually a reason for it.

Assuming the Oilers do move him in the coming days, weeks, or months, it has the potential to be a regrettable move for them and a nice win for the team that acquires him on the cheap. Just how cheap? According to Sportsnet’s Mark Spector this past week, the market for Puljujarvi seems to range somewhere between a second-or third-round pick, which is a price that almost any team in the league should be willing to gamble on.

They should be willing to do that even if the price is higher.

For starters, the odds of a second-or third-round pick (or even a mid-late first-round pick) turning into a player as good as Puljujarvi currently is are low.

There is also the very real possibility that Puljujarvi has much more to give a team than the Oilers have been able to get out of the No. 4 overall pick from the 2017 draft.

The biggest knock against Puljujarvi at this point is that he simply does not score enough given his draft spot, talent, and the fact he has gotten a lot of ice time with the likes of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.

He is coming off of a 14-goal, 22-assist, 36-point season in 65 game for the Oilers this past season, which is actually a slight per-game increase in his scoring from the prior year. His scoring over the past two seasons projects out to around 20 goals and 40 points over an 82 game season. Not great, but definitely