Vasily Podkolzin has signed a new contract with the Vancouver Canucks.

Stanley cup 2023!

Nice signing. He played well in the KHL playoffs.

Can't wait to see him play over here! Hope he's what Vancouver wanted and prayed for!!

Ultimately his impact depends on how his game translates. I'm not going to go out and say he will save our franchise, but he certainly fills a hole that we needed to be filled. Some of our fans can overrate him at times, but he still should be a respectable middle six winger next year and hopefully quickly become a top 6 piece in the same year.

Definitely was a draft pick that didn't go as expected, but here is the signing. I think he can still sustain a top 6 winger role with the Nucks.

Finally

Why would they sign him before Petey/Hughes? Like he's not going anywhere and it just gives them $1M less cap, now another team (like Seattle) could offer sheet Petey and Hughes for a combined $15M and we'd have to lose one of them right? Hoping Benning dosen't "run out of time to sign them"

(Genuine question, I'm new to all this - not sure if it makes any difference but surely signing Podkolzin after/during free agency would have given them more time to manipulate cap space?)

Don't sign him now and he resigns in the KHL and then you don't get him.

I definitely think he's overated. Will come into the NHL and put up 20~ points IMO.

and you've definitely watched zero of his games. The dude is gonna be a monster

Podkolzin reminds me a lot of Ilya Mikheyev.

Podkolzin clearly has more offensive potential (he's matching Mikheyev's 21 year old KHL ice-time / production at 19). but they definitely have a similar play-style:

- Strong effort
- Strong skating
- Strong physically
- Strong cycle game
- Strong forechecking
- Strong defensive play
- Strong finishing ability
- Straight line play styles

I think Mikheyev lost his shot when a skate cut his wrist last year, but he was on pace for 18 goals / 50 points as a 24 year old rookie (all even strength).

I wouldn't be surprised if Podkolzin is putting up those numbers within 1-2 years, but I don't think he looks like a future point per game player right now.

Anyone else agree with this comparison?

Who do you think is a better comparable?






All contracts with cap-hits under $1,150,000 can be assigned to the AHL (non-roster) without counting against a teams cap-space.
If you check Vancouver's CapFriendly page, Podkolzin is already in the non-roster section, so he won't affect free agency cap-space.
His contract will stay there until the day he makes Vancouver's 23 player NHL roster.

He'll be a nice part of the return to Buffalo when Vancouver trades for Reinhart.

Sure, we add Eriksson, you add Eichel

Podkolzin has been killing penalties in Russia, so I hope he can do that here. We have a lot of offensive players, and Miller just doesn't fit on the PK. Pearson is good for PK2 and maybe Pods can get there too. I think the top 2 lines won't change, so the Roster would look something like:

Miller-Petey-Boeser
Pearson-Horvat-Hoglander
Highmore-(3C)-Podkolzin
Motte/Roussel-(4C, MacEwan??, Beagle???)-Hawryluk/Lind

Hughes-(Hamonic or upgrade)
Rathbone-Schmidt
(Juolevi or upgrade)- Myers

No problem taking back Eriksson. LOL at including Eichel.

This guy is gonna be good no doubt, but I saw someone once say that he was gonna be better than Kaprizov. I just laughed.

I'm not sure who is overrating him because we rarely hear anything about him, and even Canuck fans are reserved in their expectations. Most of us realize that his russian team screwed him over by giving him 5-8 minutes a game on the fourth line for the longest time out of veteran prescence, and then when he's finally given minutes (such as the KHL playoffs), he is finally able to thrive.

This situation is moderately similar to Carter Verhaegue - a skilled player who just wasn't used right in Tampa and took off when given the chance in Florida.

I would have to agree with you that he gets in the 20-30 point range strictly next year as he adapts to the NA game, but his potential is up in the air. As much as VAN fans want to be optimistic, they are cautious enough to not really show that optimism for now.