Articles from Caser

Let's face it, Podkolzin is a tier of his own here. Everything has been already said and done about him, not sure if I should repeat it. In short: while it is possible to question his offensive upside due to some flaws (possibly fixable ones though), he is a winner.

As I promised in the RFA/prospect write-up, UFA players from the KHL are also getting a write-up from me, so here it is. Although I must say that with UFAs it is much harder to make predictions, as it's almost impossible to guess the final destination, so a lot of stuff written here is just my personal view on things, take it with a good grain of salt. Let's start with some simple number: 12 UFA players moved from the KHL to the NHL in the last off-season. Some are doing fine, some have...

KHL regular season comes to an end and, with Nikita Popugaev already having crossed the pond earlier this month (signed only an AHL deal though), you can say it's about time to take a look at top drafted prospects and RFAs under the age of 27, whose KHL (and, in some cases, VHL) deals are expiring. Tried to make that in a form of a Top20 ranking with players ranked by a combination of the current ability/talent and probability of moving to the NHL. Unfortunately I wasn't able to include...

A bit late to the party this time, but let's start the yearly thread, just because. A bit of an input from me: Top 20 + 18 other interesting names + 12 overagers, that's 50 total, looks fine for a start. 1. RW/LW Vasiliy Podkolzin (6'1", 190 lbs; SKA-1946 St. Petersburg, MHL) Not sure if I need to comment a lot here — Podkolzin has been showing some great things for quite some time now. And not just some flashy highlight reel stuff, but also quite an impressive 200ft game. 2. LHD Artemiy...

My annual preview of draft-eligible Russian prospects has arrived. At the beginning of the season I made a statement that this is a "boom or bust" year and actually I think I rarely have been as precise as that time.