August 18, 2024 by Ryan Lotsberg

The Edmonton Oilers announced that they acquired Vasily Podkolzin from the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for a 2025 fourth round draft pick on Sunday.

🔁 TRADE 🔁

The #Oilers have acquired forward Vasily Podkolzin from Vancouver in exchange for a 2025 fourth-round draft pick that was originally acquired from Ottawa.#LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/kS8aHMDpOl

— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) August 18, 2024

The tenth overall pick in the 2019 NHL draft has 35 points in 137 games with the Canucks. Podkolzin played in Russia for the first two seasons after he got drafted. He joined the Canucks in the 2021-22 season, and he got 26 points in 79 games that season. However, he has played less NHL games than the year prior in the two seasons since his rookie season. The 23-year old played in 39 games in his second season, and in just nineteen games this past season.

This is clearly a reclamation project for the Oilers. It’s a cheap bet on a winger with a high draft pedigree. Podkolzin was widely regarded as the third best prospect in the 2019 draft, but he fell to the tenth spot because of his commitment to play in Russia for two years. He was the biggest wild card of that draft. The scouting report on Podkolzin in his draft year was that he was a powerful skater, he had an elite shot, and that he was super competitive in all three zones. He has the ceiling to be a top line NHL winger. The problem is that his development has been trending the wrong way for two seasons now.

The Oilers used the 2025 fourth round pick originally acquired along with Roby Jarventie in the trade that sent Xavier Bourgault and Jake Chiasson to the Ottawa Senators earlier this summer. Now, the trade is essentially Bourgault and Chiasson for Jarventie and Podkolzin, which is a big win for the Oilers in my opinion. This was a great use of a fourth round pick. The Oilers still have their own 2025 fourth round pick as well.

Podkolzin signed a two-year contract with an average annual value of $1 million this past April. He would have to clear waivers to be assigned to the Bakersfield Condors of the AHL, so the Oilers would risk losing him on waivers if they were to send him down at any point.

The timing of this trade is interesting because the Oilers are still deciding whether or not to match the offer sheets signed by Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg. Podkolzin was drafted a year before Holloway was, and they are both left-handed, so it appears to be a contingency plan for losing Holloway.  This morning, I wrote that it might be smart for the Oilers to seek a cheaper alternative to Holloway. This could be exactly that.

Related: My decisions on Holloway and Broberg

However, Podkolzin plays right wing. He prefers to play on his off side. The Oilers already have Zach Hyman, Viktor Arvidsson, Connor Brown, and Corey Perry playing right wing. Hyman’s preference has always been to play left wing; but he was moved to the right side out of necessity last season, and he scored 54 goals.

Holloway would likely be on the third or fourth line if he was to be with the Oilers this fall. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jeff Skinner, Evander Kane, and Mattias Janmark are also in the mix on the left side. Kane is likely headed to LTIR for a significant portion of the season. That would open up a roster spot for Holloway. 

That spot could be Podkolzin’s if Hyman was to move to the left wing. That would put the Oilers in the awkward spot of having to put a bottom six level player in the right wing in the top six, which would not be ideal. 

The Oilers could also try to play Podkolzin on his natural side. That might get Podkolzin thinking about the game differently, which could yield better results.

I wrote that the Oilers would not be able to activate Kane from the LTIR at any point during the season without making a trade if they were to keep Holloway in my piece about the cap implications of the offer sheets. The Oilers could get to $354,167 above the $88 million cap with a 20-man active roster that includes Podkolzin. They could shed that cap space by waiving Corey Perry (which would be fine after the first day of Kane being on LTIR) and replacing him with a player with a league minimum cap hit.

Related: Deep Dive: Oilers cap scenarios with Holloway and Broberg

If the Oilers were to keep Broberg and have Podkolzin on the roster instead of Holloway, then the Oilers would be able to fit under the new upper limit of $93,125,000 that would exist with Kane on LTIR. A 20-man roster with Broberg and Podkolzin would leave the Oilers at $93,020, 916. They would be able to waive Derek Ryan and have Matthew Savoie on the opening day roster as well.

That would leave them needing to remove at least $5,020,916 in cap space from a 20-man active roster to be able to activate Kane at any point during the regular season, which would involve a massive roster overhaul during the season.

Having Podkolzin rather than Holloway would make it much easier to activate Kane during the season if needed. The Oilers wouldn’t need to trade Brett Kulak or Cody Ceci in order to keep Broberg if they were to have Podkolzin on the roster rather than Holloway though.

Basically, the Podkolzin move is a cheap bet on a high end draft pick. However, it has also decreased the odds of the Oilers matching Holloway’s offer sheet and increased the odds of them matching Broberg’s offer sheet.

We will continue to watch closely to see how this develops before Tuesday’s decision deadline.