If there is one player I wouldn’t mind seeing make their mark with the NHL squad for the Utah Hockey Club, it’s Vladislav Kolyachonok. No, he hasn’t seen the ice often in the big league, having played in just 39 games with seven points to show between 2021-22 and now, but don’t let those meager numbers deceive you.
Kolyachonok played in just five games last season for the Arizona Coyotes, but he scored one goal and made a few plays with three assists, giving him four points in that small sample size. What’s more amazing is that he didn’t see much ice time, recording just 12:28 of it, with four hits and six blocks.
Historically, laying body checks and blocking shots have been a key to Kolyachonok’s game, and it was something we saw in 2021-22 when he played in 32 contests. That year, he finished with three points but recorded 36 blocks and 39 hits, both of which hovered over the one-per-game mark.
If Kolyachonok can keep playing offense as well as he did in those five games he appeared in last season and can keep up that physical defensive play, he could be a surprise player.
Vladislav Kolyachonok may have hidden value for the Utah Hockey Club
You look at those numbers, and you can’t help but use adjectives like ‘encouraging’ to describe them, but a contingent of fans may scoff and say something along the lines of “basic stats.” The latter group would be correct, so let’s dive deeper and check out what Vladislav Kolyachonok looked like at even strength.
Overall, his Corsi For of 45.6 was terrible, especially when you consider 47.1 percent of his starts were in the offensive zone. Any time I see the Corsi For at even strength smaller than a player’s percentage of offensive zone starts, I cringe, but that’s where the bad news ends.
Kolyachonok takes advantage of the time he’s spending in the offensive zone trying to help his teammates create chances. How do we know this? While he scored just one goal last season, Kolyachonok was on the ice for seven of them at even strength, giving him an on-ice shooting percentage of 21.9.
Further, his PDO was an astounding 115.6, and his 93.8 on-ice save percentage was also epic, so we can conclude that even his advanced metrics were more encouraging. Small sample? Absolutely. But it shows that he deserves an expanded role in the near future, and that his value to the Utah Hockey Club could be better than you may expect.