Aman, PDG and Podkolzin are in a battle for the 12th F spot / 13th F/reserve forward spot.
Two of them will stay, and one is going back to the farm.
If I were to lay bets, I'd probably say PDG as 12th F, Aman as 13th F, and Podkolzin on the farm. I hope I'm wrong, that Podz has a huge summer and camp, and makes the team as the 12th F.
Problem with this is...these guys are are waivers eligible. That alone gives them an inside track on sticking with the roster.
There's zero chance they'll waive Podkolzin. If he doesn't make the team, he'll be dealt somewhere. His draft pedigree says he's got no chance of slipping through. Too many rebuilding teams with nothing to lose, to believe nobody would take a flyer on him for free.
PDG is unlikely to hit waivers, but he's done it many times and cleared many times before. So there's at least a chance they'd risk it.
Aman...if he has a really bummer camp, i suppose i could see them waiving him. But barring a disaster camp, i don't think they want to risk losing a dirt cheap 4th line C/Spare Forward like that.
Yes, probably this. Podkolzin is in tough because both Aman and PDG are contributors on the PK, which Tocchet loves. With Lindholm gone our top-two PK forwards will probably be Blueger/Joshua, and then you figure it out from there. Miller and Pettersson were used some last year, but I assume they want to keep them down around ~1 minute per game PK max. Aman was used quite a bit on the PK when he was in the line-up, I would say his best bet to get a fourth-line spot is to become a leader short-handed.
Yeah. This is a huge ace in the hole for Aman. He's already viewed by this staff as a good, solid PK option...
and a Center. That really sets him apart from pretty much everyone else he'd otherwise be "battling" with for a spot.
I just don’t understand the claim that Aman “wasn’t a great scorer” in his time in Abbotsford (15 games or half a season, give or take) when he produced at a pace that would have had him tied for the team lead in both goals and points. But that simultaneously the other guys of similar age and pay rate who scored at the same or lower rates as Aman are so impressive that it is imperative that the team replace Aman with them.
Yeah. This is the other thing with Aman. He really does seem like he's learned and established about as much as there is to possibly do for him at that AHL level. The thing he has to do now, is figure out how to get at least a tiny sliver of that AHL offensive ability to start to translate through to the NHL level.
It's all well and good to be defensively responsible, solid on the PK, and trusted by the coaches that way...but at some point, you
do have to be able to at least pitch in a tiny little bit of offense at some point. Especially on a team configured the way the Canucks are...where they really depend on depth and getting offensive contributions from all 4 lines.
But that's not something he's going to develop at the AHL level. If he's ever going to "get it" and start to produce a little bit of 4th line offense at the NHL level, it's going to have to be something he figures out...at the NHL level.