[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Itse

A lot of the time there's kind of an assumption here in Finland that kids just learn English through osmosis. It's also mandatory in school (in practice), but a lot of English teachers that aren't very good. Tons of kids learn English just fine here, but we have for example a very local music culture which is almost completely in our own language, while Swedish pop music is mostly sung in English. Finnish is also from a completely different language group than... well anyone else except Estonian. The language barrier is much, much higher for Finn who speaks poor English than for a Swede.

Puljujärvi really makes me sad, I've rarely seen kid who looked like he loved to play hockey as much as he did, and he had all the tools to be good, great even. You don't score 17 points in the U20 tournament as a 17 year-old without having some very serious talent. He clearly needed more help, mentoring and time to grow than most, he was mentally very much a kid. Combine with skyhigh expectations and the Oilers "development" system, and it was a recipe for disappointment. A disappointment which always seemed very likely to me.


As for that 2016 WJC Team Finland in particular, it was also coached by Jukka Jalonen, who is just an absolute legend as a tournament coach, and regularly gets incredible performances out of non-elite players. (Plus that team was generally pretty stacked for a Team Finland. Mikko Rantanen and Roope Hintz are the two most notable players beyond that first line.)

Interesting to compare Rantanen and Puljujarvi who were drafted a year apart. How was Rantanen's English in year one? I see also he spent an entire year (less his 9 game cup of coffee) in the AHL in year one. He excelled in San Antonio as an 18 year old under Dean Chynoweth. Then he comes up the next year and does well - I wonder if Iggy helped him - both power forwards.