When it comes to Canucks prospect Vasily Podkolzin, my main thesis remains the same.
If you're hopeful about him, you'll keep finding reasons to hope. If you're doubtful, you'll keep finding reasons to doubt.
I suppose it's the same as any other top prospect, really. And as crazy as it seems now, we're only two years removed from "Elias Pettersson is too thin to make it in the NHL" and one year back from "Quinn Hughes is too small to be an effective NHL defenseman."
Poor Jake Virtanen is still getting the love/hate treatment. And Bo Horvat spent quite a few years working on his skating and putting up points before he silenced (most of) his doubters.
Anyway, Podkolzin stoked the debate fire marvellously on Tuesday night, scoring two goals and adding an assist as Team Russia moved to 2-1-0 at the World Junior Championship with a 7-1 win over Austria.
He certainly had all the room in the world to get set up here, but for a player who has been criticized for his reluctance to shoot, he did a great job of picking that top corner.
The second goal came from the other side of the ice, down low:
He also briefly had a hat trick in the third period, originally awarded credit for Russia's fifth goal — a power-play marker where he was in the high slot. But even though he waved at it, it was eventually ruled that the puck went straight in, so Artemi Knyazev got credit for the tally.
Though his 14:11 of ice time was lower than in Russia's other games, Podkolzin was buzzing and noticeable all night, and finished with five shots on goal. Russia is on a back-to-back, facing Sweden in Wednesday's late game, so it's probably a good strategic plan to make sure that he has some gas still in the tank.
The Swedes are 2-0 so far, and will finish out their round-robin on New Year's Eve against Team USA. The first tiebreaker in the standings is the head-to-head matchup. I believe a regulation win for Russia on Wednesday would guarantee that they finish first in Group B, since they'd hold the tiebreaker over both Sweden and USA, and the Czechs wouldn't be able to catch them in points.
A win would also end Sweden's 14-year, 54-game round-robin winning streak. Given that the Swedes haven't lost a round-robin game since 2006, I don't want to get ahead of myself and hand these three points to Russia automatically. Right now, I just know that the math could get very complex if Sweden wins.
As for our Swedes, featuring Canucks prospect Arvid Costmar, they delivered a workmanlike 4-0 win over Austria in their last game on Monday, to go to 2-0.
Costmar's linemate Noel Gunler was the offensive star of that game, named Best Player for Sweden thanks to his two goals. But two of Sweden's goals, including one of Gunler's, came on the power play. Costmar finished the night with three shots and a was a plus-one, on the ice for Gunler's second of the game, but did not pick up a point.
He also had another solid game on the dot, going 8-for-13 in the faceoff circle.
The big story in that game was Austrian netminder Sebastian Wraneschitz, who stopped 61 of the 65 Swedish shots that he faced. At the oher end of the ice, Austria was limited to just six shots on goal, so I think it's safe to say that Sweden's performance was even more dominant than the score suggests.
Wraneschitz also stopped 58 of 68 over 49:12 in Austria's tournament-opening game against Team USA, before being pulled because he was cramping up.
He didn't even dress against Russia on Wednesday. The Russians faced Jakob Brandner, who stopped 43 of 50.
Now, turning to the Canucks and the NHL — it's totally surreal to me that the seven non-playoff teams are opening their training camps on Thursday, and we're just two weeks away from games being played.
NBC announced its broadcast schedule on Tuesday. It includes a McDavid vs. Matthews matchup and a Montreal/Toronto game, but no sign of the Canucks.
Nothing yet from Sportsnet on this side of the border. I hope that's just a Christmas-holidays thing, and they'll have a splashy announcement early next week — along with some game times.
NBC has scheduled the times for its opening-night triple header, but nothing beyond Night 1.
Many teams around the league have started holding regular media availabilities ahead of the opening of training camp. I do Flyers coverage for
Full Press Hockey and have been getting regular transcripts and updates from the team in my inbox over the last week or so. But other than the Jason King/Chris Higgins coaching staff announcement on Dec. 23, it's been crickets from the Canucks.
Rick Dhaliwal dropped one UFA nugget on Tuesday:
Now 29, Vatanan is a right-shot defenseman who spent most of the last three seasons with the New Jersey Devils before he was shuffled over to Carolina at the trade deadline, despite having been out with a leg injury since early February.
Vatanen didn't play for the Hurricanes until the postseason, where he registered three assists in seven games. He missed Carolina's first playoff game of the second round, against Boston — 'unfit to play.'
Vatanen could be a decent depth addition if the price is right — although I bet his agent is hearing that from plenty of teams right now. There's lots of chatter about how clubs are expecting to go 10 or 11 players deep on their blue-line depth chart this year, with the compressed schedule. And while I'm excited about the Canucks' kids getting a real opportunity to play, it's also a little scary that they currently only have five blueliners under contract who have meaningful NHL experience.
After Edler, Myers, Schmidt, Hughes and Benn, the dropoff is pretty steep to Ashton Sautner (23 career NHL games) and Guillaume Brisebois (eight career NHL games). Olli Juolevi has his one playoff game, and Jalen Chatfield has been a call-up, but never dressed at the NHL level.
I saw that the Oilers even signed ex-Canuck Ryan Stanton to an AHL contract on Tuesday.
Other under-30 blueliners still available on the UFA list include Travis Hamonic (29), Micro Mueller (25), Madison Bowey (25) — and Ben Hutton (27).
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