EDMONTON — Pre-season hockey, experience tells us, will always tell you who can’t play. However, it does not always tell you who can.
So when Ty Rattie and Jesse Puljujarvi team up for five goals on a Tuesday night against a fairly well-represented Vancouver Canucks lineup, you’re allowed to say, “So far, so good.”
A Rattie hattie that runs his pre-season totals to 7-3-10 in three games, and a Puljujarvi pair for his third and fourth of the pre-season? Those are grounds to wonder if maybe this is real.
Toss in Kailer Yamamoto’s seven points in four games, and we’ll pose the question: Is there legitimate evidence to believe the right wing isn’t the black hole everyone was thinking it would be this season for the Edmonton Oilers?
“If they keep playing like that there is,” said goalie Cam Talbot, who stopped 35 shots in a 6-0 shutout. “Rats is a smart hockey player — very cerebral — and I think he fits very well with Nuge (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins) and Connor (McDavid).
“And Jesse has just been on another level this year. His speed is second to none. I’d put him up there with Connor at this point the way he’s flying around.”
As fast as McDavid?
“Sure…,” quipped Puljujarvi, who wasn’t buying the hyperbole.
Nearly unnoticed is the fact McDavid has piled up seven points in two pre-seasons outings, setting up two of Rattie’s goals Tuesday. It just could be that playing Rattie alongside McDavid and Nugent-Hopkins — effectively running a scoring winger with two centremen — could be the ticket to uncorking a kid who has scored goals at every level, except the NHL.
“I know its exhibition and the points don’t count,” Rattie said. “I like to think I have a good hockey IQ and I know what they want to do with the puck. They can both beat guys by themselves, so get open, find space, and when you get your chances you better be burying them.”
Sound advice for a 25-year-old who is making the most of a lifetime opportunity, a silver platter laid down by head coach Todd McLellan before training camp began. It was then that McLellan chaired a meeting that included four invitees: Rattie, Puljujarvi, Yamamoto and Pontus Aberg.
“He showed us the depth chart,” Rattie described, “and said, ‘There are openings here. It’s going to be a battle, but the ball is in your court. Whoever wants it, go out and get it.’
“You have to take that to heart and in the next practice, the next game, prove how bad you want to be there.”
As intriguing as Rattie’s story is, the big reveal here in Edmonton is Puljujarvi — the fourth overall draft pick in 2016 — finally beginning to become a player. He just turned 20 on May 7, but already some were wondering aloud if he was a bust. If Columbus general manager Jarmo Kekalainen, the one GM who could speak to Puljujarvi in his native tongue, knew something Edmonton did not when Columbus chose Pierre-Luc Dubois ahead of the big Finn.
What changes does McDavid see in Puljujarvi’s game?
“Another gear,” McDavid said. “He’s just got another step. He must have had a good summer.”
Puljujarvi walked around defenceman Derrick Pouliot with amazing speed and the long reach of a six-foot-four winger, a combo that will be very difficult for smaller defencemen to handle. Later he took a close-quarters pass from McDavid and rifled a wrist shot under the bar, the kind of hands that get you drafted in the Top 5.
“He’s got skill,” McDavid said. “The goal he scored on the power play, I zipped it in there on his backhand, and sometimes that’s a tough play when you’re going full speed. He handled it perfectly and got off an amazing shot.”
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While Rattie reported in top shape and has displayed a commitment not before seen in his game, so too did Puljujarvi figure a few things out over the summer, coming in 10 pounds lighter than when he’d left town in the spring. These are small signs of bigger things; examples of the kind of maturity that makes good players into better ones.
“You work hard, and some good things will happen. I had a good summer. That helped me,” said Puljujarvi, who has found confidence early this autumn. “I think that all things come from there. If you have good confidence, good things happen.”
They said a lot of things had to go right for the Oilers to be a playoff team this season. The right side was at the top of that list.
It’s early — we get it. But Yamamoto, Rattie and Puljujarvi have combined for 15 goals, just five games into the pre-season.
That’s not a bad thing. Let’s leave it at that.
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