Jesse Puljujärvi (born 7 May 1998) is a Finnish professional ice hockey player for the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League (NHL).
Puljujärvi was born in Älvkarleby, Sweden, on 7 May 1998.
When he was four years old, his family moved to Tornio, Finland, where he began playing ice hockey and bandy at Tornio IHC.
2011
Puljujärvi played in the 2011 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with the Finland Selects youth team.
Puljujärvi moved to Oulu alone at the age of 13 and started to play in the local hockey club Kärpät.
In the 2011–12 season, he scored a total of 15 goals and 41 points in 30 regular season and qualifying matches in the C-junior team.
In the following season, Puljujärvi moved up to B-juniors and scored 51 points, which earned him the Heino Pulli award given to the B-junior rookie of the year.
Puljujärvi strengthened the C-youth in the playoffs, who won the Finnish Championship.
2013
In the 2013–14 season, Puljujärvi played mostly in Kärpät A-juniors.
The season was interrupted by a femur fracture, which sidelined Puljujärvi for the first two months of the season.
Despite this, he became one of the key players in his team at only 15 years old, scoring 23 points in 18 regular season matches.
2014
He became a professional in 2014 after signing a contract with the Oulun Kärpät of the SM-liiga.
In the 2014 playoffs, seven goals were scored in 12 matches.
At the end of the season, Kärpät won the A-junior championship silver.
In May 2014, Puljujärvi signed a three-year SM-liiga contract with Kärpät.
He already played with the team in the first practice match of the 2014–15 season on 7 August 2014, against Kalevan Pallo, scoring one goal and an assist that led to the goal.
The next time Puljujärvi appeared in Kärpät's roster was in the Champions Hockey League match on 5 September, against Germany's Kölner Haie.
The match was his first official professional game.
The game continued all the way to the shootout contest, where Puljujärvi managed to score with his only attempt.
Puljujärvi made his SM-liiga debut in the opening round of the 2014–15 season on 10 September, against Tappara, when a place opened up for him in the Kärpät's lineup after Patrick Davis was injured.
Puljujärvi became the youngest player in the team's history at the age of only 16 years, four months and three days.
He was immediately named to the Kärpät's first team next to Nicolas Deschamps and Mika Pyörälä and Puljujärvi got 11.53 minutes of ice time.
In the match, he also had one assist on Julius Junttila's goal, which was the first goal of the entire season.
Puljujärvi thus also became the youngest player to score a point in Kärpät's history.
He scored his first goal in his third match on 17 September, away against Hämeenlinnan Pallokerho.
At the age of 16 years, four months and ten days, Puljujärvi became the youngest scorer in Kärpät's history and the fourth youngest scorer in the entire SM-liiga history.
In total, Puljujärvi scored four goals and 11 points in 21 regular season matches during his rookie season in the SM-liiga.
He and his club won the Finnish Championship at the end of the season.
On the CHL side, Puljujärvi played three matches without points.
He spent his spring season mostly on loan with the Mestis team Kajaanin Hokki, where Puljujärvi won the Mestis bronze medal at the end of the season.
2015
Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod drafted Puljujärvi as the 44th player at the KHL Junior Draft event in 2015.
In his first full SM-liiga season 2015–16, Puljujärvi scored 13 goals and 28 points in 50 regular season matches and four goals and nine points in ten playoff matches.
At the end of the season, he won the SM-liiga bronze with Kärpät.
In the CHL, Puljujärvi played 13 matches and scored two assists.
His club won CHL silver.
2016
Rated as a top prospect, Puljujärvi was drafted fourth overall by the Edmonton Oilers in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft.
Puljujärvi played his junior years in Tornio and Oulu.
He has played in the NHL since 2016, mostly for the Oilers and also briefly the Carolina Hurricanes.
Puljujärvi, although being born in Sweden, represents Finland internationally.
In January 2016, the NHL scouting office listed Puljujärvi in second place among players playing in Europe.
