Why Did He Force His Way To Utah?

Why Did He Force His Way To Utah?

way out into center ice there. Power leaves it. Purka’s got a lane. Scores. What a dart. This is JJ Purka. He just got moved from Buffalo to Utah after he basically just didn’t want to be there anymore. Times are tough for the Sabres, but for the Mammoth, this is the biggest trade in their franchise’s history. A 23-year-old diamond in the rough, high octane number one scoring winner that you acquired for a couple around the edges pieces. Utah’s built one of the most exciting top six units in hockey, but is it actually enough to take them into contention status? [Music] So, who is JJ Purka? Well, basically there’s six NHL skaters from Germany. Two of them are okay. Four of them are great players. JJ Purka is one of the four. A 6′ 189lb winger whose skating might be his best trait. He’s got the pop gene. Not like J BBs or anything, but he can pop from a standstill to gain speed almost instantly. It’s a factor that’s not just genetics, which he absolutely has, but it also requires good knee bend, good back posture. He gets both his feet off the ground. He doesn’t look like PK Suban in an offseason training video. And he keeps a running formation long enough before starting his stride. He created a lot of opportunities for Buffalo this season through this by becoming an immediate threat offensively up the wing. Since his Germany days, scouts knew how good he was at making a quick read and jumping up the ice early to get in position for a rush opportunity. For Buffalo, it was a real spark of offenses. He was the only guy who could do it at this level, which is a large part of why he had nearly 70 points this season, third among players from the 2020 draft class, and he was a second round pick. This is where Utah’s system could lead to a lot of good opportunities for Peter because Utah’s system was maybe the most exciting in hockey this year. Why doesn’t anyone talk about it? I don’t know, but I’m not going to talk about it right now because we got to stay on topic of skating where Purka has a tendency to glide or float at times. Sometimes with a player, that’s a lack of buyin. Sometimes it’s about keeping his positioning on the ice and sometimes it’s just a game of values. What do you value more? Purka’s acceleration and agility means he can bolt out of the zone and if he cheats a bit, he can get a clear-cut scoring chance out of basically nothing. Look how quickly this scramble turns into a Buffalo advantage after Purka gets up to speed and he makes a difficult pass which you know was called offside. Cheers ref. On the flip side of that for Peturka game seven of the cup finals, you’re paying this guy nearly 8 million a season and he can look like a pylon at the worst of times. That’s a give and take of working with a guy like JJ Purka and comparing what he brings offensively versus defensively because even offensively he’s a little bit one-dimensional within the world of the cycle game. Uh he doesn’t have great stats, but he buzzed around the offensive zone in Buffalo’s two-3 system, darting towards open space and jumping on opportunities. It’s like he has a switch in his brain sometimes, and when he’s on, he’s on. The fact they play a two-3 system works to Purka’s advantage, creating these mini rush opportunities that a dynamic player like Purka takes full advantage of. So his offensive game is built on the rush, but the forcheck involvement is pretty minimal. I would classify him as a finesse first player. While it’s not like he’s unable to fight through contact, the forcheing game still leaves a lot to be desired. And I wouldn’t say he’s anywhere close to a Mitch Marner cerebral forch checker that creates a lot of counterplay. It’s like once the puck is on the other team stick, he just doesn’t feel exceptional at all. That’s probably the biggest knock on his game. Or maybe the defensive play is, but the rush offense is actually exceptional. And Utah is an unbelievable rushbased team. Why doesn’t anyone talk about it? Well, I’m going to talk about it right now. JJ Purka and Utah is a kind of combination that stats nerds are getting super fired up about right now. And I’m personally pissed that not everyone in the world cares about how crazy this fit is. I couldn’t believe it when checking earlier this season, but Utah was far and away the most consistent team at entering the offensive zone with possession this season. A part of me thinks it’s a huge shame they didn’t make the playoffs this year because in their inaugural season they played some of the most fun hockey in the league led by largely Clayton Keller, Logan Culie, Dylan Gther on the first line where I could be wrong but I think Purka is going to force his way onto it. Alternatively, you put Purka on the second line and then you have two lines of ridiculous high octane offense. Now talking about systems, I think that might have worked against Peterka’s favor in Buffalo defensively. They played a more advanced hybrid defensive structure where there was more potential for greatness, but there’s also more potential for mistakes if there’s a miscue. Perka was really not helped here. I think Utah’s box plus one in the defensive end, especially considering all the tricks they have to create offense from their own end, like flipping the puck out and creating a little race to get it in the neutral zone. It’s going to lend itself to some pretty crazy highlights. So, Utah might be the kings of rush offense, but you know, Buffalo was no slouch either, to be fair. They’re pretty dangerous off the rush and frequently sent Byum or Dalene up the wall to help create looks. Two extremely talented offensive defenseman that isn’t going to be there in Utah. It’s not all sunshine and daisies is what I’m getting at here. You’re giving up one situation for another one. Um, another way of looking at it is that Buffalo through all of their aids we heard about this year and how it feels like every time a player gets drafted to Buffalo, they get descended into Hades shade of that underworld where their souls are instantly blackened and It’s like they had two fewer wins in Utah this year. Basically, Purka is joining the best fit in the league for him, but he’s leaving behind what was already a pretty strong fit for him, at least offensively. Okay, so he gets points off the rush, but what does that actually look like? Well, it’s goals first. Especially early in his career when he put up a Michael Grabner ass stat line last season. He’s got a pretty lethal wrist shot that can beat a goalie clean. And just like German buddy Leon Dryidle, how do you do same amount of cups? He could rip a one knee one-time on the power play pretty consistently. 14 of his 27 goals this year were classified as a one-timer by sport contract. This opens up the chance for Utah to really tinker with their power play if needed, which to me is kind of nuts. They already had the 10th best power play in hockey. You probably don’t need to move Keller off that wall. So finding Purka a spot might be tough. Run two units, run five forwards. I don’t know. Good problem to have though. The goal scoring is probably the most consistent part of Purka’s game and I think it’s going to be there his whole career. He’s got a lethal shot and it creates constant highlights for him. I can already envision Peter’s name in the rafters one day. Maybe that’s crazy. Sorry. Sorry guys. I sorry that was I got ahead of myself there. Okay. Well, JJ is considered more of a goalcoring guy, but this season his assists went up a lot. So he’s probably pretty developed here, right? Okay. So, here’s the statistical anomaly portion that’s a little bit confusing. Buckle in and please subscribe because I had to go back to middle school to learn my percentages again. It’s not fun sitting in a class with kids. It’s weird as hell. I hated it. Okay, on ice shooting percentage. The stat that shows how often shots from your team go in. Only when you’re on the ice. Your team got 10 shots while you were on the ice. Two of them were goals. That’s a 20% shooting percentage. Nice. A great player elevates his teammates and might hit 12% at even strength across a season. Hey, that’s pretty good. If everyone always shot 12%, that means goalies have a 880 save percentage when you’re on the ice at 5v5. In the NHL this season at 5v5, the NHL average save percentage was 911. Aka the average player had on ice shooting percentage of 8.9%. Cucharov was at 12% this year. Damn, that’s good. That’s probably why he led the league in scoring to be fair. JJ Purka was at 14.23%. two three%. Which is the highest figure ever recorded for this stat. Damn. I’m not saying he got lucky all year, but like are we really saying he’s the most efficient play driver in modern hockey? This stat can only be counted back to 2007, so who knows? Maybe Punch Broadbent went on a nasty PDO bender for the Montreal Maroons, but we’ll never know. What we do know, however, is that JJ Purka is an extremely efficient playmaker. That part is no joke. At 5v5, he’s had about as many primary shot assists as a Niels Hoglander or Yuri Safkovski, but Purka’s value comes from these consistent high danger passing opportunities. It’s a big reason to why his giveaway ratio is so high if you put stock into that. He’s not a primary facilitator, but he tries to find crazy looks pretty often, prioritizing high danger opportunities, maybe the same way Martin Nus or Alexi Pro does. This in part, I think, can explain his ridiculous onai shooting percentage he had all year. I talk about this stat a lot because it’s fundamentally figuring out how lucky you are and how much your points matter when looking at it. If you’re mucking around on Buffalo all year, you’re probably not the most efficient score of all time, which is what this stat indicates. So, what can we take from this? What does it mean? Should I care? Where did Amelia Heheart land? I can’t answer all those questions for you, but I do know that one, JJ Purka’s 68 points this season probably does not happen next season without improving his all-around offensive game with more playmaking and scoring reps. As it is, he just doesn’t make enough dangerous passes in the offensive zone or shoot enough pucks to put up elite firstline numbers every year. Two, Purka is an extremely efficient player who seems to collect a lot of his points from high danger areas and in high danger situations. the kind of situations I can envision Utah being in a lot next year, especially with their high octane game, prioritizing rush offense, and the litany of talent on the team. Damn. I think another way we could see Purka improve next season, however, is actually his cycle game and his inzone playmaking. I think we saw the instincts this year, and maybe this is a route to producing a lot. working with some highly skilled talent and spending five years with them. The potential to gain some long-term chemistry in the ozone could counteract some natural decline in shooting percentage. JJ Purka is one of the most exciting young players in hockey and his ceiling keeps changing the more time he spends in the NHL. His scoring took a jump this year to first assign caliber, but he’s going to have to do what he does more if he wants to put up these numbers every season. I get the sense that Purka is an extremely hard worker, however, and his desire to play in Utah feels pretty cool. It’s a brand new franchise, and we’re seeing how maybe some other athletes don’t like Utah across other sports. The fact the Mammoth are picking up a highlight reel machine who can immediately make an impact is at the very least good for the sport. The West is shaping up to be a bloodbath next season, and I don’t think there are eight teams objectively better than Utah in their conference. Purka doesn’t solve any issues, but it makes their Rush game so good that I don’t know, we maybe have never seen a squad built like this before. The first season as a franchise with a full logo, real name, and a nice arena. I think JJ Perka joining is only fitting. We get to see what this new era looks like for this franchise in October, and I cannot wait. [Music]

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