Oilers notes: Vasily Podkolzin shows off his fighting skills

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Vasily Podkolzin looks almost sheepish as he sat in the penalty box in Nashville after his winning scrap over a much more experienced Jeremy Lauzon Thursday with Lauzon going to the dressing room for repairs.

But word travels fast in NHL circles, especially with fights.

“He won’t have to worry about 90 percent of the players in the league now,” said Louie DeBrusk on Sportsnet, figuring they would leave him alone after watching Podkolzin offer up two ripping rights that knocked Lauzon down.

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Lauzon, who threw the first six punches at Podkolzin before a reply, has fought Nicolas Deslauriers, Brady Tkachuk, Austin Watson, and Josh Manson, among others, so he’s willing and he’s had a lot more fistic fury than Podkolzin.

Lauzon is good at it and has long been a game competitor, but…

Podkolzin has had two NHL fights, about two years apart. He fought A.J. Greer in November of 2022 when Greer was with the Bruins and Podkolzin was playing for Vancouver. That was a draw, and now this one.

He also dropped the mitts with Raphael Lavoie in the AHL last season.

“He probably had more hits (punches) than me. But maybe a draw?” said Podkolzin, rehashing the Lavoie scrap when he was with Abbotsford and Lavoie in Bakersfield.

Podkolzin hasn’t scored as an Oiler, but he leads the team in hits (30). He was completely overlooked on the Leon Draisaitl to Viktor Arvidsson goal in the first minute in Nashville, but he was the one who dug the puck out of the corner to start the chain reaction. This was his best game as an Oiler, noticeable in a big way, on just about every single shift.

Broberg budding with Blues

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Yeah, hindsight is 20-20. We get it. But, even if it’s a small sample size, it’s clear the Oilers should be having more than a few “uh, oh” moments after not matching on defenceman Philip Broberg, even if the St. Louis Blues’ summer offer sheet was a big gulp at $4.58 million AAV for two years.

Again, there needed to be some major cap gymnastics here, and the optics of giving him more than Evan Bouchard didn’t look good back then, but this looks like it could be a big mistake.

Broberg has nine points in 11 games for St. Louis, has played the fourth most minutes on the team, and has been on the ice for the fewest even-strength goals against (just three, second fewest amongst defencemen) in those 11 games as Justin Faulk’s partner. He’s been on for nine five-on-five goals.

“At worst Broberg is going to be a No. 3 defenceman for a long time, maybe a 2 from what I see,” said a long-time talent evaluator who has been watching the surging player with the Blues. “He’s playing against the other team’s best players, he’s getting some power play time, he’s on the penalty-kill.”

Broberg didn’t get much traction here (91 regular-season games, 13 points, playing a too-safes, low-event game) except in the playoffs last spring when he came on in the Dallas series. But off his sterling work with Blues, averaging 20:25 a game, he could well have been the plug-and-play, game-in, game-out partner for Darnell Nurse.

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Would the Oilers have matched on Broberg if Ken Holland was still Oilers’ GM? Broberg was his first draft pick in 2019 and you know the long-lasting faith GMs have in their draft picks? Stan Bowman knows his stuff but had no allegiance to Broberg.

The Oilers will likely still be looking for a tag-teamer for Nurse at the March trade deadline and he could be older, making similar cap money, and possibly won’t be any better than Broberg, who is on the radar for Sweden’s back-end at the 4 Nations Face-off in February off his fast start, although a long-shot because they have too many older left-shooting D options. Rosters have to be in by Dec. 1.

This ‘n that

• Leon Draisaitl (two goals and a sweep assist to Arvidsson) has passed Hall of Famer Glenn Anderson (92) for most three-point nights in Oiler history. Draisaitl has three five-point games against Predators, a four-goal night, and nine three-plus point games outings over his last 16 meetings. And there’s one more Oiler-Preds game here on Nov. 14…
• Oilers defenceman Mattias Ekholm looks like an automatic to be in the third pairing on Sweden’s 4 Nations blueline roster. They need his physical element…
• Rick Elaschuk’s Kastner auction of his autographed Wayne Gretzky 1984 Cup finals game-worn stick and a WHA-signed Gordie Howe 1974 model have been put on hold until a U.S. company can authenticate both. There was one early online bid of $50,000 for Rick the Stick’s memorabilia…
• Oilers defenceman Troy Stecher and Drake Caggiula go way back. They were alternate captains of U of North Dakota’s 2016 NCAA championship squad. Caggiula’s assist on Corey Perry’s goal Thursday was his first Oiler point in six years (Dec. 29, 2018), an assist on Caleb Jones’ first NHL goal in a loss to San Jose…
• Caggiula is making $775,000 to play in the NHL, but not a big drop-off to play in Bakersfield, $500,000. Lot more fun in the NHL, though. Caggiula made sure he reached into the net behind Juuse Saros to get the puck for Noah Philp for his first NHL point, helping on Perry’s goal…
• Also overlooked in the Nashville win: Mattias Janmark, still looking for a goal, saving one on Steve Stamos’s wraparound on Calvin Pickard…
• After the first six games on the farm, Collin Delia has a 1.61 average and Olivier Rodrique 2.99, in three games apiece. That’s quite a disparity…
• Raphael Lavoie, looking to make an instant impression after Vegas claimed him and put him in AHL Henderson, has just two points in five games (-5) in Henderson. Vegas’s AHL farm club…
• Former Oilers draft pick/farmhand winger Carter Savoie is now playing in the ECHL in Greenville with the Swamp after a short time in Finland didn’t work out…
• Under very hard to believe: Iiro Pakarinen, 33, who had 10 goals for Oilers in 134 games, now leads the Finnish Elite League with 22 snipes in 19 games for the league’s top team, IFK Helsinki. Where did that sharp-shooting come from?
• And winger Adam Cracknell, who played two good years in Bakersfield, continues to prove he’s never met a team or a league he doesn’t like. Cracknell, now 39, is currently with his 23rd pro team in Poprad in Slovakia and lighting it up after playing last season in Henderson. Lots of alumni game choices.

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