Five summers after the Jim Benning regime picked him 10th-overall in the 2019 NHL Draft, Russian forward Vasily Podkolzin is no longer with the Canucks.
The Jim Rutherford/Patrik Allvin administration dealt the 23-year-old to the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday for a 4th-round draft pick next summer.
The move clears a million dollars in cap space this season and next, makes the Canucks cap compliant at the moment, and leaves them with 13 forwards under one-way contracts.
Podkolzin, always likeable and enthusiastic, is the last of the Russian players to be sent out of town. Current Canucks management earlier moved on from forwards Andrei Kuzmenko and Ilya Mikheyev.
Podkolzin struggled to grasp the 200-foot, all-around NHL game, and therefore never consistently made the most of his offensive skills. He finishes his Vancouver career with 18 goals and 17 assists in 137 games, with 14 of those goals and 12 of those assists coming his rookie season when the sky was the limit. He gets a fresh start in Edmonton where the division-rival Oilers will try to harness his raw talents.
Kuzmenko was nearly a point-a-game player with the Calgary Flames after being dealt in January, while Mikheyev went to the Chicago Blackhawks in a deal earlier this summer.
