Oilers’ Podkolzin off to flying start riding shotgun with McDavid, Draisaitl

EDMONTON — How on earth does a team like the Edmonton Oilers , in the middle of their Stanley Cup window, end up with an emerging, 25-year-old power forward like Vasily Podkolzin ?

From a Vancouver team that could dearly use such a player? For just the miserly price of a fourth-round draft pick, no less?

Well, it all started with a phone call from former Chicago Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman, to his former head coach in Chicago, Jeremy Colliton, who just happened to be Podkolzin’s head coach in AHL Abbotsford.

“I was already leaving to go to New Jersey at the time he called me, and I think Stan had recently taken the job in Edmonton. (Podkolzin) was available, I guess is the best way to put it,” began Colliton, over the phone from New Jersey.

“I felt like he could be a top-nine guy on a top team, just because of the package that he offers. I could see him playing the playoffs. Probably a complementary player in the top nine. Obviously, he's in a pretty good complementary spot right now.”

Colliton had Podkolzin in Abbotsford for 72 games over two seasons (2022-24). He quite liked the player, but it is clear now that Colliton’s bosses in Vancouver didn’t really know what they had.

Consider this anecdote from Bruce Boudreau, the Canucks head coach for parts of Podkolzin’s first two seasons there:

“I remember our first meeting with (Canucks president) Jim Rutherford and the GM (Patrik Alvin),” Boudreau recently told Edmonton Sports Talk. “I said, ‘I think (Nils) Höglander and Podkolzin should go to Abbotsford to get their game going a little bit. We’re asking them for big minutes here, and they’re really young guys coming from a different situation.’

“And they looked at me like I had two heads. So that went about as far as anything else I said in Vancouver.”

Today, Podkolzin roams the left side of one of hockey’s most dangerous lines, with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. He has seven goals and 12 points in nine games, but his path to production isn’t the one anyone thought he would travel when he was drafted 10th overall in 2019.

“I was the 10th pick. So, yeah, expectations are high,” Podkolzin said this week. “You grow up pretty fast here in this league, and then you figure out what role you have. I'm happy with mine.”

His role evolved from franchise saviour in Vancouver to a steady, sturdy forechecker in Edmonton with offensive potential.

“I remember having a meeting with him,” recalled Colliton. He told Podkolzin, “I see your game transferring. I see you playing on a playoff team and being a heart-and-soul guy. That is incredibly valuable, and you’ve got to get your head around that being really good — whether you score 40 goals or not.

“Like, there are only so many of those guys around,” Colliton told him. “I'm saying to him, ‘I'm not going to put a ceiling on you — ever — but you’ve got to value that role.'”