NHL trades can happen at any time, as former Vancouver Canucks forward Vasily Podkolzin recently learned.
The 23-year-old was on his way to do some furniture shopping when he found out the Canucks had dealt him to the Edmonton Oilers.
“My wife and I were driving to IKEA to look at furniture for our new apartment when the Canucks general manager called and said I had been traded to Edmonton,” said Podkolzin to Responsible Gambling’s Daria Tuboltseva in an exclusive interview published today.
“We talked briefly and thanked each other. Then the Oilers general manager called and said they were waiting for me on the team.”
Podkolzin married Sasha Kotyatkina in 2021. They have one child together, a baby who was born in July 2023 in Vancouver, which they celebrated on social media at the time.
This weekend’s trade keeps the Russian winger in the Pacific Division, near the only NHL city he’s called home.
He showed much promise as a 20-year-old rookie, scoring 14 goals in 79 games. However, he’s failed to progress since then and has stalled out, scoring just four goals and five assists for nine points in 58 games over the two years since.
“This trade is a good opportunity for me as a player. I want to play and win as much as possible; that’s the main thing,” continued Podkolzin to Tuboltseva. “I’ll be flying to Edmonton soon, I think in two weeks.”
The Canucks traded Podkolzin just over a month out from the start of their training camp in Penticton.
The Oilers and Canucks had a hard-fought second-round playoff series during the most recent NHL postseason. The series needed the full seven games to be decided. With the way that the NHL playoff format is set up, a postseason meeting between the two teams next year would not be a surprise.