That one player other than McDavid the Oilers would be wise to lock up just now?
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Fortunately this player has been mentioned repeatedly on Oilers Now by team insider Bob Stauffer as a player the team intends to sign.
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I'm talking about Vancouver castaway Vasily Podkolzin, known affectionately to Oilers fans as Podzilla in honour of his hammering, crashing, board-thumping style of play.
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Such is his prowess at the physical game, which includes the ability to win pucks through aggressive forechecking and backchecking, that Draisaiktl was reportedly satisfied to play with him through the year, which is no small accomplishment.
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If we rank NHL forwards by their rates of goal scoring, assisting on goals and hitting at even strength for the 2024 and 2025 playoff season, giving equal weight to each of the three categories, Podkolzin ranks as the top forward in the NHL.
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He made the most of limited ice-time, just 10.1 minutes per game at 5-on-5. He found a way to help out on scoring players while delivering 25.6 hits per 60 at 5-on-5, the fifth highest of any forward in the last two playoff years.
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Of course this is a small sample size, and if we do a similar ranking for the entire 2024-25 regular season, Podkolzin ranks just 246th out of all regular NHL fowards due to his unexceptional goals and assists rates.
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But we can see that if he can just pick up his offensive game a bit, he'll be a very useful power forward for years to come, one that can hold his own in a Top 9 slot, if not playing in the Top 6.
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More evidence of Podkolzin's worth? At the Cult of Hockey video review project, we track hard plays that Oilers players make on Grade A shots, the goalie screens, hard charges, battles won, tips and jams that lead to Grade A shots and goals.
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In the regular season, Podkolzin was the second best Oiler — after the superlative Zach Hyman — at executing such hard plays to create dangerous shots on net.
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In 82 games, Podkolzin executed eight goalie screens, seven tip shots, 14 jam shots, five hard charges or drives on net, and won 31 battles leading to Grade A shots, 65 hard plays on Grade A shots in total, 0.79 per game, behind Hyman at 1.64 per game and just ahead of the increasingly frisky and mean Ryan Nugent-Hopkins at 0.78 per game.
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