You want him playing steady minutes and having a bigger role though. I mean one of my pauses with Podkolizin is he plays for SKA and it limits his role there. If he breaks through into one of those roles they will likely be interested in handing him a 4+ million dollar contract without the tax burdens...
He is one that I actually have the fear on in terms of would he come over and it does influence how I evaluate him. I don't want him toiling away on SKA's youth teams after this draft, but you want to make sure he plays a heck of a lot more than he did this year in terms of meaningful minutes. He has one of the best compete levels if not the best in this draft, there are things to like, but there are a lot of ifs piling up for the draft slot people are talking about, I would prefer not to be the team that takes the chance. There is a reason he has big consensus in the industry in terms of #3, he is a very talented hockey player despite some of the numbers, I think scouts have seen enough in terms of there, but yes in his case the team stuff in Russia does give me a lot of pause.
I would much rather take a guy like Cozens, who I think is also a pretty good floor player like Podkolzin in terms of he has a lot of translatable skills to the NHL when you watch him. Again I really do like the Jeff Carter comparison, if he can become that, it is a huge foundational piece for whatever organization does call his name in June.