Make or break season for Vasily Podkolzin: Why the Canucks need him to make it

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Cooper Godin
August 10, 2024 (3:27 PM)

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The 2024-25 season may be make or break year for Vancouver Canucks forward Vasily Podkolzin.

It's been a tough few years for Vancouver Canucks forward Vasily Podkolzin. In his first year in North America, he spent the entire season with the Canucks in the NHL and played exactly how they expected when they selected him with the 10th overall pick in 2019.

But since his rookie year, Podkolzin hasn't been able to stick in the National Hockey League and has bounced up and down between Vancouver and their American Hockey League affiliate in Abbotsford. When he's been up with the Canucks, he hasn't brought a whole lot and has looked a shade of the player that he was during his rookie campaign in 2021-22.

Next month's training camp could be make or break time for Vasily Podkolzin with the Vancouver Canucks organization. He needs to prove himself to Rick Tocchet and the coaching staff during training camp and pre-season games in order to potentially earn a spot on the opening night roster. If he's unable to earn a roster spot right out of camp, then the Canucks are put in a very difficult situation and would have to place the Russian forward on waivers in the hopes that he'll go unclaimed and down to AHL Abbotsford. Podkolzin going unclaimed is extremely unlikely, so the Canucks may give him plenty of opportunity in training camp to prove himself and that could mean getting top-six minutes in pre-season contests alongside someone like Elias Pettersson or J.T. Miller.

Recently, Jeff Paterson of The Province was on Sekeres and Price to discuss the topic and said that it's essentially make or break time for Podkolzin with the Canucks organization.

"And I kind of feel like it is now crunch time. We know that there's no safety net for the organization, they can't send him down to Abbotsford without clearing waivers. I think Vasily Podkolzin is the type of player that a lot of those bottom feeders around the National Hockey League would be wise to take a crack at, that kind of what waivers is for. A guy that hasn't been able to hit in an organization and the mechanisms are in place for him to get a second chance somewhere else. You know, I don't think he's thinking about second chances at this point, he wants to make it happen here in Vancouver. But if he is put on waivers, a 23-year-old with the physical tools that he's got, I have to think that a San Jose or an Anaheim or Columbus or whoever has waiver priority would put in a claim." Paterson said.

He added, "So, I don't think he's getting through and that makes for a fascinating sort of subplot to training camp. That there's a glut of wingers here with what the Canucks have done in the off-season and it's on him now to step up and show up. If you remember last year in Victoria, he got an opportunity on the first couple days of training camp to play with J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser. He couldn't ask for a better spot. I don't know if he's going to get that opportunity this time around, they've got new faces that are going to feature in this lineup that I'm sure they want to slot in and see what they've got. Really going to be interesting to see where it goes from here but this is a player that played 16 games last year, had two assists, didn't score, got a look in the playoffs, briefly, but didn't do a whole lot with that opportunity either and so, he just looks like a guy that's in his own head, afraid to make mistakes. He has to find a way to get past that and if he's going to become the player that the Canucks hope that he was going to be when they took him 10th overall in, then it is go time for Vasily Podkolzin."

With the additions this off-season, it's going to be tough for Podkolzin to make the roster out of training camp, which could lead to his departure from the organization via waivers or a trade, if the team is able to find a match to avoid placing him on the waiver wire and losing him for nothing.

Do you think Vasily Podkolzin will make the Canucks' roster to start the 2024-25 season? Let us know what you think in the poll below.