Make or break season for Vasily Podkolzin: Why the Canucks need him to make it

"And I kind of feel like it is now crunch time. We know that there's no safety net for the organization, they can't send him down to Abbotsford without clearing waivers. I think Vasily Podkolzin is the type of player that a lot of those bottom feeders around the National Hockey League would be wise to take a crack at, that kind of what waivers is for. A guy that hasn't been able to hit in an organization and the mechanisms are in place for him to get a second chance somewhere else. You know, I don't think he's thinking about second chances at this point, he wants to make it happen here in Vancouver. But if he is put on waivers, a 23-year-old with the physical tools that he's got, I have to think that a San Jose or an Anaheim or Columbus or whoever has waiver priority would put in a claim." Paterson said.

He added, "So, I don't think he's getting through and that makes for a fascinating sort of subplot to training camp. That there's a glut of wingers here with what the Canucks have done in the off-season and it's on him now to step up and show up. If you remember last year in Victoria, he got an opportunity on the first couple days of training camp to play with J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser. He couldn't ask for a better spot. I don't know if he's going to get that opportunity this time around, they've got new faces that are going to feature in this lineup that I'm sure they want to slot in and see what they've got. Really going to be interesting to see where it goes from here but this is a player that played 16 games last year, had two assists, didn't score, got a look in the playoffs, briefly, but didn't do a whole lot with that opportunity either and so, he just looks like a guy that's in his own head, afraid to make mistakes. He has to find a way to get past that and if he's going to become the player that the Canucks hope that he was going to be when they took him 10th overall in, then it is go time for Vasily Podkolzin."