Canucks prospect Petrus Palmu has spent the last year and a half playing overseas and it doesn’t appear as if that will be changing for 2020-21. Rick Dhaliwal of TSN 1040 and The Athletic reports that as a result of Vancouver’s decision to renew the contract of AHL Utica head coach Trent Cull creates a situation where both the team and Palmu’s agent Todd Diamond will agree that it’s best that the 22-year-old remains in Europe for next season.
Palmu was a sixth-round pick (171st overall) of Vancouver in 2017 in his final year of draft eligibility after a dominant showing with Owen Sound of the OHL. He returned to his native Finland the following year before signing an entry-level deal with Vancouver in 2018.
However, things didn’t go well in Utica. Palmu didn’t see much action with the Comets and eventually secured a loan agreement that allowed him to go back to TPS Turku of the Finnish SM-liiga. On his way out, he spoke to Dhaliwal about his lack of playing time, saying “Honestly, I didn’t get the reason why I didn’t get the ice time, nobody really talked to me.” That quote certainly didn’t sit well with Vancouver.
This season, Palmu moved on to JYP Jyvaskyla and had a strong season, notching 13 goals and 22 assists in 47 games to rank fifth on the team in scoring while the playoffs were wiped out due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Palmu actually has one more year left on his entry-level contract so the Canucks will need to agree to loan him out again and a return to JYP certainly makes some sense coming off the year he had. In the 2021 offseason, he’ll be a restricted free agent and Vancouver will have to make a call at that time about issuing him a qualifying offer to retain his NHL rights or non-tender him, allowing him a shot to potentially catch on with another organization.