Canucks Kravtsov
Been there, done that; back to the future, potential sloppy seconds. There’s a number of quips to creatively describe Vitali Kravtsov’s second time around with the Vancouver Canucks.
The first go in Vancouver lasted just 16 games in the late winter and spring of 2023 when the then 23-year-old put up a goal and an assist after being acquired from New York for feisty AHL forward Will Lockwood.
Kravtsov, a left-shot winger and former 9th-overall NHL Draft pick of the Rangers (2018) then hightailed it back to Russia to spend the next two seasons in the Kontinental Hockey League. The KHL is that country’s top circuit.
He turned it up a notch last season with 58 points in 66 games for Chelyabinsk Traktor on the big ice surface. Apparently that did enough for his confidence, maybe sprinkle in some maturity, and it was time to cue the return.
His agent Dan Milstein would have played a big part. Milstein is a one-man pipeline for Russian players to the Vancouver Canucks. The Andrei Kuzmenko sweepstakes of July, 2022, the signing of Ilya Mikheyev the same day, the Nikita Zadorov acquisition from the Flames in November of 2023; all Milstein clients.
What do they have in common? They’re all gone.
By the way, oddly enough, newly acquired Evander Kane is also a client.
So in steps Kravtsov for round-two in British Columbia. It’s a one-year, two-way deal. He’ll earn $775,000 at the NHL level; Milstein was able to swing him a tidy $450,000 in the AHL.
Kravtsov’s a wild card. It’s that simple. If he lives up to those pre-draft expectations to any extent, then he probably makes the hockey club as a bottom-six winger. If he doesn’t he heads to Abbotsford to play for the AHL Canucks, or he says screw it and heads back home.
There are no comparables for the KHL to the NHL. There is some tremendous offensive skill in that league, but the overall game falls below AHL standards related to depth.
Put it this way, Kevin Dallman was a 7th defenceman for the Boston Bruins in 2005. After 154 games with three different NHL teams, Dallman headed to Russia where he led KHL blueliners in scoring more than once and was a perennial all-star.
One more quip as it relates to Kravtsov: your guess is as good as mine.
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Daily Hive sports editor Rob Williams’s answer to the Kravtsov question can be heard in the very informative video interview found below.
Before acting as host for that one, as a guest on a program earlier in the day out east, I wasn’t asked about the Russian when talking Canucks. Realizing that, it was my first question for Williams.
