Gone with a whimper: Ex-Canuck Vitali Kravtsov heads back to KHL

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He was a dart-throw of a pick up by the Canucks at the tail end of yet another lost season, but the big Russian’s NHL dream is well and truly over.

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Published Nov 04, 2025 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 4 minute read

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canucks Vancouver Canucks’ Vitali Kravtsov (middle) collects the loose puck after goalie Arturs Silovs made a save against the Nashville Predators’ during the overtime period in NHL hockey action in Vancouver, B.C., Monday, March 6, 2023. Photo by Rich Lam /The Canadian PressArticle content

Vitali Kravtsov, we hardly knew ye.

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Well actually we did, but it just wasn’t very exciting. Kravtsov, who did have plenty of hype in his draft year, will go down as a footnote in Vancouver Canucks history. Really, he’s a reminder of how hard it is to make the NHL, even when you are blessed with talent.

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He was a dart-throw of a pick up by the Canucks at the tail end of yet another lost season, making the expectations for him low. He left, then came back two years later, but we can now say the big Russian’s NHL dream is well and truly over, that he’s an ex-Canuck.

An ex-Canuck again, but this time for good.: Tuesday, the Canucks announced Kravtsov was being released from the one-year contract he signed over the summer. In these circumstances, the team can’t move unilaterally, the player has to agree to the termination, so this won’t have come out of the blue Kravtsov. That he’d not been called up by the NHL Canucks despite a rash of injuries was pretty telling; he had NHL experience, but with how his season had gone so far, that hardly mattered.

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Kravtsov called the Canucks this summer to ask if they’d let him have another go at the NHL. There was no risk for Vancouver here, he was coming off a strong season in the KHL and when you are scoring outside the NHL, there’s always going to be a willingness for NHL teams to see if you can bring those skills to the show.

According to CHEK-TV’s Rick Dhaliwal, Kravtsov is re-signing with Traktor Chelyabinsk, the team in the Russia’s heartland where Kravtsov spent the past two seasons. In Russia, he showed great offensive ability.

In North America, not so much. Drafted in 2018 by the New York Rangers, Kravtsov never showed any of the promise he’d shown as a junior — or what he managed in the KHL the last two years.

He spent parts of two seasons with the New York Rangers, then finished the 2022-23 season with the Canucks.

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Vancouver Canucks Vitali Kravtsov at team practice at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, BC Thursday, September 25, 2025. Photo by Jason Payne /PNG

His stats page closes on 64 career NHL games, 18 with the Canucks, scoring a total of six goals. His lone Canucks tally was an excuse-me finish on a late-season power play, an attempt to pass to the backdoor that instead hit a defenceman’s foot and deflected into the goal.

And perhaps that best sums up the Kravtsov experience at the NHL level. This is the world’s best league it’s just really, really hard to make it. For whatever reason, he couldn’t find an edge. A big guy, he never showed an explosive stride to cut inside. So often his puck touches were on the side boards or in the corner.

Even in the AHL this season he wasn’t up to much: one goal and three assists in 10 games for Abbotsford. His lone goal was notable: a powerful one-timer that picked the top corner over Kaapo Kahkonen’s glove hand. Kahkonen, at least, was a goalie with NHL experience.

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Maybe with a different post-draft course, things might have been different. Instead of getting time in the minors, being leaned on to score, learning to how to manage the defensive demands the NHL puts on you, he spent his first season after his draft in Russia, playing a depth role for Chelyabinsk. His second post-draft season he came over to North America, but went home homesick.

That happened again in year three. By year four, the Rangers didn’t know what to do with him and he ended up being flipped to Vancouver, where GM Patrik Allvin was openly chasing after former prospects who might benefit from a change of scenery.

Kravtsov was certainly happy to be in Vancouver, a city he knew from the past: his sister had gone to university here and Vancouver reminded him as well as his hometown of Vladivostok, a port city on the Pacific with big Asian influences. He was always personable in conversation, even if you were never sure how much passion for hockey he had. He was clearly big and strong enough for the NHL and he could handle the puck better than most.

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Even then, though, he struggled to put his skills on display. And when he signed to go back to the KHL in the summer of 2018, there was little surprise. He’d looked lost here, perhaps he’d find his way back in his homeland.

He did. Playing in Chelyabinsk, where he’d played junior as well as his first pro season after being drafted, he scored 18 goals in his first season back, then 27 last year. He was showing the promised he’d held in junior.

He was hopeful, clearly, that he’d be able to show himself to be a proper NHLer this time, but his training camp was no different from what he’d shown two years ago: no buzz to his game, no reason to pick him over the handful of other players vying for a final roster spot. In his pre-season games, he did more wrong than right: indeed his last pre-season game at Rogers Arena saw him at fault on two Seattle Kraken goals.

At the time, I wondered if that was the last time we’d ever see him skate at the Garage. It proved to be true.

Hockey is hard. Most prospects are bad. You can only wish Vitali Kravtsov the best for the rest of his hockey life.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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Gone with a whimper: Ex-Canuck Vitali Kravtsov heads back to KHL

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