This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Vasily Podkolzin
Edmonton Oilers Right Wing
A 58.4 per cent chance share in thirteen minutes a night, from a winger Vancouver gave away for a fourth-round pick.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | VAN | 79 | 14 | 12 | 26 | +7 | 26 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 115 | 12.2 | 12:48 |
| 2022-23 | VAN | 39 | 4 | 3 | 7 | -5 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 41 | 9.8 | 11:50 |
| 2023-24 | VAN | 19 | 0 | 2 | 2 | -4 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 0.0 | 10:49 |
| 2024-25 | EDM | 82 | 8 | 16 | 24 | +1 | 48 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 114 | 7.0 | 13:13 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 219 | 26 | 33 | 59 | -1 | 91 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 290 | 9.0 | 12:37 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
8 goals and 16 assists in 82 games for 24 points, plus-1, on 13:13 a night.
57.5 per cent at five-on-five, the 97th percentile, with on-ice goals of 38-40 against an expected 45-33. 82 games in a bottom-six role and a chance share better than almost every top-six forward in this edition.
The Finesse Game
Limited and not the reason he is useful. 114 shots and 8 goals at 7 per cent, and 16 assists — the offensive game has never translated from what a 10th overall pick was supposed to bring.
45 per cent of his attempts come from inside 20 feet, so the locations are right and the finishing is not. If he ever scores at a normal rate he becomes a genuinely valuable player; there is no evidence yet that he will.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 190, and he plays a genuinely heavy forechecking game. He finishes checks, wins pucks below the goal line, and is one of the more relentless bottom-six wingers in the league.
48 penalty minutes over 82 games is a moderate rate. The durability was perfect in his first season here.
The Intangibles
A 10th overall pick who was given up on at 23 for a fourth-round pick, and immediately posted a 98th-percentile chance share on a Cup finalist.
That is one of the better transactions in this edition. The projection is a third-line winger who tilts the ice and scores 12 goals — and if the finishing arrives, considerably more.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“he plays a genuinely heavy forechecking game”
“He finishes checks, wins pucks below the goal line, and is one of the more relentless bottom-six wingers in the league.”
“wins pucks below the goal line”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 969 minutes
- Expected goals
- 57.5%
- 97th pct
- Shot attempts
- 56.8%
- 95th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 38 for, 40 against. Expected: 45.2 and 33.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 21 points above where the report does. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 77 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2024-25 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 23.0 mph
- 84th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 2.28 a game
- Distance
- 2.22 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 92.2 mph
- 89th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 83.9
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2024-25 · 969 minutes at five-on-five
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2024-25
- The club
- EDM took 54.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 57.5% — 3.2 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second line, 969 minutes at five-on-five — 56th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leon Draisaitl | 59.7% | 54.2% | 59.4% |
| Viktor Arvidsson | 58.7% | 56.2% | 50.5% |
| Darnell Nurse | 57.6% | 57.3% | 52.0% |
59.7% together, 54.2% for him apart and 59.4% for Draisaitl apart. He was worse away from Draisaitl, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Draisaitl did.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
165 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 8 of them goals. His median goal came from 26 feet. 45% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 15% from beyond forty.