NHLer Vasily Podkolzin Finds Out He's Been Traded On His Way To IKEA

There doesn't seem to really be a convenient way to find out that you've been dealt to a new team, but I'm always interested to hear what players were doing when they found out that they had to uproot their entire lives and jet off to a new city.

For former Vancouver Canuck/newly-acquired Edmonton Oilers forward Vasily Podkolzin I'm not sure if he had the most convenient or inconvenient situation.

According to an interview the 2019 first-round pick did with RG.org, he and the missus were on their way to everyone's favorite Swedish furniture store, IKEA, when he got a call from Canucks GM Patrik Allvin letting him know that he had been dealt to the reigning Western Conference champs.

"My wife and I were driving to IKEA to look at furniture for our new apartment when the Canucks general manager called and said I had been traded to Edmonton," Podkolzin said. "We talked briefly and thanked each other. Then the Oilers general manager (Stan Bowman) called and said they were waiting for me on the team."

Podkolzin's Trade Came Out Of Nowhere

Oof, so he was on his way to get a Friehten sofa and some Janinge barstools for his new place in Vancouver, only to learn he needs to find a new apartment in Edmonton before he gets to spend an afternoon getting pissed off trying to assemble IKEA furniture.

(By the way, I don't know how the Swedes pulled this off, but they came up with a place that is at the same time the most practical and impractical store on the planet. They've got reasonably priced, cheaply made furniture and cafeteria food — which is convenient — but to get it you have to scavenge through a f--king warehouse looking for individual pieces. Also, somehow, they're always out of the last piece you need to pick up. It's like a Twilight Zone episode… a lame one.)

Hopefully, the Podkolzins at least got to crush a couple of Swedish meatballs and grab a jar of lingonberry jam before they start apartment hunting in Alberta.

The trade was pretty unexpected. Podkolzin spent most of last season in the AHL with the Abbotsford Canucks, but was on the Canucks roster during the playoffs and had just re-upped with the team on a 2-year, $2 million deal.

What could have led to it though, was the Oilers needing to snag a relatively affordable young forward after having forward Dylan Holloway (and D-man Philip Broberg) signed by the St. Louis Blues who sent both of them offer sheets.