Jesse Pulijujarvi’s agent should really call Andreas Athanasiou’s agent!

The TSN panel pointed out that this isn’t the first holdout that Kenny Holland has had in recent history.

A few years ago, Andreas Athanasiou was holding out from the Detroit Red Wing’s. The GM at the time was our GM Ken Holland.

Here is one link to the holdout:

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nhl/red-wings/2017/09/05/detroit-red-wings-andreas-athanasiou/632696001/

In summary. Andreas had a good previous season, wanted more money and a was offered a bigger 1 year contract in the KHL and was ‘holding out’. Holland literally just called the bluff and did nothing:

https://thehockeynews.com/news/article/report-stalemate-ends-athanasiou-expected-to-sign-one-year-deal-with-red-wings

Andreas even moved to Europe and started practicing in Switzerland. Kenny did nothing. When you look at Andreas’s stats above, he never played one second in the KHL. He did practice in Switzerland and Holland gave no fucks. He actually ended up coming back to the NHL for less than he was initially offered. As per the articles above, Holland was offering 1.9 million and Andreas ended up coming back in Early Fall for 1.4 million.

What scares me is that Andreas was coming off a 29 point season with 18 goals in 64 games. He had value. He was fast, young and ‘dynamic’. Holland just stood pat.

Here are Jesse’s stat going into his ‘holdout’:

I’ve highlighted the 2 most important things:

1. Andreas had 29 points in one season (64 games played). Jesse has 29 points in the last 2 seasons combined (111 games played).
2. Andreas scored 18 goals (64 games played) the season before ‘holding out’. Jesse has scored 17 in his entire career (139 games played).

By all indications Ken Holland has made it clear he’s not trading Jesse unless it makes sense for the Oiler’s. I’m positive he got lots of offers for Andreas Athanasiou at the time. Our very own Alan Hull even suggested we trade for him.

I seriously doubt that Ken’s phone is blowing up with amazing offers for double hip surgery Jesse. I’d strongly advice Markus Lehto to contact Darren Ferris.

From Jesse’s perspective. He’s been treated awfully and developed poorly. His draft day to today should be turned into a manual of how not to treat elite prospects. It should be then handed out to all the GM’s at every single draft as a cautionary tale of what not to do. I feel bad for him. If he were my client, I’d want him far from Edmonton too!

Something tells me this ends poorly for Jesse. I hope Holland is better than Chia in this regard. I encourage him to do nothing unless a: an amazing offer comes along or b: Jesse decides to suit up and play on a show me contract and works his butt off. The Oil have brought in Finnish players to help mentor him. We have a Finnish goalie who will be here for the next 3 years. If Jesse still doesn’t speak good English then that’s on him because it’s been 3 years since he arrived in Edmonton. The fact he is practicing and rehabbing in Edmonton tells me we haven’t heard the full story. I’d love to know what Jesse thinks of all this. I know what Lehto wants and I know what Holland wants. I consider a new GM and a new coach as a ‘fresh start’.

What I don’t want to see is Jesse traded for a fresh start at our expense. We traded Nail Yakupov for Zach Pochiro. We traded Jordan Eberle (who just signed a beauty contract for 6 more years) for Ryan Strome, no, Ryan Spooner... um, no, Sam Gagner. Both those trades were made for ‘fresh starts’ and we lost both trades. Asset management is one of our biggest downfalls. Trading guys because the fans hate them, had bad playoff runs, don’t fit the ‘culture’ for lesser returns is extremely bad for business.