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Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher
Well if you're using projection then his poor season doesn't necessarily really matter in the grand scheme of things. And as I pointed out Bennett is also coming off a really poor season in terms of points and is older than Puljujarvi and yet we believe he could still be a star and wouldn't trade him for a variety of players. This justification for putting Puljujarvi high would be that you feel he's going to be a star NHLer. That's the upside he had when drafted and it didn't disappear just because he didn't instantly excel in the NHL.
Lots of reasons why Puljujarvi didn't excel in the NHL. Chiarelli went over a few of them in his 50 minute interview with Bob Mackenzie. First off Puljujarvi's english was pretty bad. He comes from a pretty remote area of Finland from what I'm led to believe. Chiarelli thinks his transition to NA was a bit rough and I think that's a totally valid assessment. I think having Jokinen will help him quite a bit this season.
I mean it'd be great if Puljujarvi busted but the kid is a beast with serious skill. I don't think that's a likely outcome.
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Bennett was ranked in the 70s, Pulijujarvi was ranked 18th. Wee bit of a difference.