Can Oilers’ Vasily Podkolzin be better than fourth-line LW?

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Is there more there for the Russian forward Vasily Podkolzin, who dropped into the Edmonton Oilers lap in August for chump change (fourth-round 2025 draft pick) when the Vancouver Canucks gave away the former 10th-overall pick from 2019?

Or is Podkolzin destined to be another Klim Kostin, the brief Oiler, now in San Jose?

All good questions, with no answers yet.

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All we know is Podkolzin, while skating hard, hitting hard and well on his way to becoming a penalty-killer for the first time in his NHL career, has no points in his first six games, pretty much on the fourth line with Derek Ryan and Corey Perry.

He has been noticeable, in a good way, except with the puck on his stick. Probably because he hasn’t shot it, with a measly four shots in six games.

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You can’t score if you don’t shoot. Yeah, Captain Obvious.

As a former NHLer correctly pointed out Monday, if you get 300 shots in a season and only have a 10% shooting average, that’s still 30 goals. You get 200 shots with the same shooting to goals efficiency and that’s 20.

But Podkolzin, who had 115 shots his rookie NHL season in 2021-22, on the way to 14 goals, only has 65 shots in his past 64 NHL games with just four goals.

In Vancouver, Podkolzin lost his instinctiveness and creativity after his rookie season. He was playing safe, reacting rather than acting, and the Canucks thought he was stagnating so they let him go. The Oilers, like the Canucks, are trying to unlock Podkolzin’s skill level.

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Playing 10:34 minutes a game isn’t much ice-time, but this is a Stanley Cup threat.

“Wherever I am, doesn’t matter. You have to score, be more free offensively. Every chance is really important. I have to shoot more, for sure. Of course, I shot more my first year, maybe I wasn’t thinking about it. I will shoot more (here), but I have to find the right position for the shots,” he said.

Fact is, there’s no reason why any NHL player can’t get two shots a game.

For now, Podkolzin has wedged his way into the PK rotation, a good thing so he’s not sitting for long periods of time.

“I love the penalty-killing, more responsibility for me, that’s what I needed at this time,” he said.

“The fourth line has generated quite a bit, with Corey, D.R. and Pods … I think they’ve been really good,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “I’m not saying Pods s going to be a point-a-game guy, but there’s more offence in him.

“Look at his rookie year, he put up pretty good numbers. After that, not nearly as well, but he’s given our team more speed, definitely physicality, he’s been driving the net … He did that a couple of times against Dallas.”

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HOLDING PATTERN FOR GAGNER

With Carolina in town Tuesday, it brings to mind Sam Gagner’s tryout with the ‘Canes.

While he often was in the second practice group, while the Canes had their regular roster and signed younger players in the main one, Gagner did well. He had a very strong last exhibition game with a young roster against Nashville, but they still released the 35-year-old, who hasn’t given up trying to make it back to the NHL.

“I was offered a two-way (deal) and I have nothing against playing in the AHL,” texted Gagner, who did so in Bakersfield and also with Toronto Marlies and Philly’s AHL farm team once upon a time. “But the Chicago (Wolves)-Carolina (farm team) situation doesn’t make sense for my family.”

Gagner hasn’t put his blades in the closet.

“I am back in Ontario now, skating/training and being a dad (three kids). Waiting to see if anything comes up hockey-wise,” he said.

CHANGING THINGS ON ‘CANES BLUELINE

Carolina could put out Jaccob Slavin, the most underrated D in the league and his estimable partner Brett Pesce against Oilers captain Connor McDavid in the past, but Pesce, who turns 30 next month, signed in New Jersey as a free-agent and ‘Canes other top four D, Brady Skjei, 30, went to Nashville this past summer. So two long-timers moving on from the perennial Cup contenders.

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The money for the right-shot Pesce ($5.5m AAV) and Skjei ($7m AAV) might have been doable for Carolina, but they apparently balked at the term for the 30-year-olds.

Pesce, who has yet to play this season after breaking his leg in the playoffs last spring, got five years with Devils, Skjei seven with the Predators.

The Canes signed Sean Walker and Shayne Gostisbehere, now playing in the second pairing, to replace them. A good piece of work. But the big story in Carolina is their best organizational prospect, Russian D Alexander Nikishin, 23.

By all accounts, he’s one of the best young players outside the NHL. He has been in the KHL for five years, currently with SKA in St. Petersburg.

In the past two seasons with SKA, he had 55 and 56 points as the top offensive blueliner in the league. He could be over in the spring when SKA’s season ends.

This ‘n’ that

After a strong camp (four games), the Oilers have signed first-round draft pick Sam O’Reilly to a three-year entry level deal. The London Knights forward factors into being a third-line Oilers centre in a few years, but he was playing the other night on right wing for the junior team … Oilers winger Perry and Canes’ D Brent Burns, currently playing as Slavin’s partner, are both 39. Coming out of the same 2003 NHL draft, they’re third- and fourth-oldest players on NHL rosters. Both turn 40 next year. Marc-Andre Fleury is the oldest player, with Ryan Suter second. Burns is two months older than Perry … Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour’s son Skyler, the former Oilers draft choice, got a two-way NHL deal with Carolina after playing last season in the ECHL. The ‘Canes have a lot of smaller forward prospects and there’s feeling the 6-foot-3 Skyler might be an NHL fourth-line centre down the road if he can get some offence to his game … Rod Brind’Amour, hired by the Canes in 2018, is the fourth-longest-tenured NHL coach today behind Jon Cooper in Tampa, Mike Sullivan (Pittsburgh) and Jared Bednar (Colorado) … Former Oilers winger Warren Foegele, who signed a three-year free-agent deal in Los Angeles ($3.5m AAV) is off to slow start. No points in his first six games, but he long has been a streaky offensive player … The Canes, like the Oilers, are only carrying 12 forwards on their lean (salary-cap squeezed) roster … Sherwood Park’s Cam Ward, who has lots to give as a guru, could easily be in goalie player development for Carolina, but isn’t yet. He was on the ice in pads the other day with injured D-man Riley Stillman, Cory’s son, though. Stillman told Ward, who won a Cup and the Conn Smythe award as playoff MVP in 2006, he was only eight years old when Carolina and the Oilers played in the seven-game final. Ward, who played junior for the Red Deer Rebels, was only 22 back then and now he’s 40.

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