Flashback for a Vancouver Canucks prospect:
It’s spring of 2021, and the Under-18 World Junior Championships are winding down. One of the most prominent storylines centres on a surprise, standout performance from a Belarusian prospect, one that many didn’t even know existed.
He’s extremely raw, physical, and angry. He dragged his undermanned team into the fight against hockey’s highest-profile nations, playing a havoc-filled but skill-based game. Most importantly, the winger possessed a deadly wrist shot that blistered off his blade like a canon, tormenting opposing goaltenders.
That player was Danila Klimovich.
Immediately signing his entry-level contract, Klimovich, who was just 18 years old, jumped from the Belarusian hockey circuit to the American Hockey League. Equivalent to a base jumper transitioning instantly from a small hill to the 2,340-meter Tibetian Mt Cho Oyu, growing pains were expected.
A considerable project to begin with, the Belarusian lacked basic details and struggled to process play at a heightened pace. His defensive game was behind the curve, limiting opportunities. Everything from playing in a structure to the language barrier presented problems. Still, flashes of upside would appear, harkening back to his draft season.
Present day, Klimovich is now in his fourth AHL season. In an early career of ups and downs, he entered the 2024-2025 season off a disastrous campaign in the previous year. In 2023-24, he averaged under nine minutes of ice time across 24 games, shooting at just five percent; Klimovich’s development was primarily off-ice, as on-ice opportunities did not exist.
Nevertheless, that lack of opportunity would change. With former Canucks alumni Manny Malhotra taking the reins of the Abbotsford Canucks, Klimovich would see a doubling in ice time immediately, and with that, success has started to roll.
Goal Scoring Impacting Abbotsford this season
Leading Abbotsford in goal scoring with nine across 19 games, Klimovich, now 21 years old, is a full-time, plus-level player in the AHL. The major reasons? First, he has experience at the AHL level; if you think about it, these past few years have been the only higher-level development in his career.
Second, his skating has improved. Heavy-footed as a teenager, Klimovich’s stride mechanics and frequency have taken significant steps forward. His motor, a measure of how involved he is in a given shift, is now at a professional level.
With these improvements, Klimovich’s tools have started to take over. Finding and timing activations into open pass seams, Klimovich is a more involved pass supporter. This is important because he primarily scored off the pass (or shortly off the pass) at the start of this season. Now able to read and move to higher-danger scoring areas, Klimovich is a legitimate option for friendly puck carriers.
His shot remains elite. Mechanically, he hits every check mark. He keeps balanced over the puck, improving accuracy. He unlocks his left arm from his hip and leverages all of his 202-pound frame through his bottom hand, creating power. Finally, Klimovich releases with a quick and deceptive wristfold, all while transferring his weight through his lower body.
Klimovich’s goals have been beautiful this year — a product of precise shooting, angle-changing, or deft support near the crease.
It’s no surprise that he’s generating chances off the rush as well. When he isn’t dropping back as a trailer, Klimovich is racing to drive the middle, working hard to get behind defenders, and even getting open for his fair share of breakaways to start the season. The finishing in-tight isn’t always there, but that’s much easier to fix than getting the opportunity in the first place.
Evasion, Physicality, and Board Play — Keys to Translation
When we look at the way this Vancouver Canucks team operates, it’s clear that grinding pucks for second-chance opportunities and setting up sustained cycle sequences are core to its DNA.
What struck me about Klimovich’s early-season tape was how far along these habits have come for the 6-foot-2 right winger. While his linemates dole out a lot of down-low work, allowing Klimovich to leverage his shooting off the centring pass, he has shown himself to be a strong puck mover off the perimeter of the ice.
He’s rambunctious, battling for an inside position on retrievals to utilize his frame and weight advantages. With possession, Klimovich is hard to contain, reading pressure off his back and cutting away to shake off defenders. While he’s not infallible and could protect better in moments, you have to imagine that these attributes are necessary to succeed and play under Vancouver Canucks coach Rick Tocchet.
Playmaking is stronger than numbers suggest
Despite only having four helpers this season, from my estimation, he’s been unlucky not to create more for his teammates.
An overly complex playmaker, most of Klimovich’s pass attempts are “home run” efforts. He hunts teammate sticks through heavy layers, disproportionately targeting teammates with cross-slot passes and feeds into the blue paint. It’s clear he sees the ice at a high level to even attempt those passes, but he also flashes skill, connecting on many of his attempts, often finding small pockets through defender’s legs and sticks.
He could stand to simplify at some point, as these pass lanes are even harder to access in the NHL.
In transition, assisting on the breakout, you will find Klimovich scanning on retrievals (absorbing information) and throwing reverse hits to bury forecheckers. From there, he’s even sprung a few attacks with deft board banks and area feeds to streaking teammates.
While there are flashes of a burgeoning power game, we have seen in the past how hard that is to translate to the NHL level. Luckily, when Klimovich gets caught on the perimeter, he cuts back, disrupting the defender’s gap and funnelling pucks to the inside in the newly created space.
There’s an added maturity to his game that just wasn’t present in previous years.
The biggest hurdle
After reviewing his game, it’s clear that defending pressure will likely be the most crucial part of Klimovich’s game when it comes to translating to the NHL.
Good defending is often a byproduct of hockey sense, effort, and structure. At the very least, Klimovich has added the element of effort to his game. A stick-first, physical threat, it wasn’t uncommon to see high-effort backchecking sequences, often leading to outside guides. He can absolutely send opponents horizontal with his strength, which adds a level of disruption to his play, and his inside hard-skill habits appear all over his own-zone play.
Beyond that, he’s an impactful high-pressure pusher, upping his footspeed to force pass-offs and limit space.
Klimovich struggles most with his reads — longer sustained sequences lead to more passiveness than you would like. It’s more reacting than processing and stopping. This is a significant worry — the NHL is a beast when it comes to skill and pace, and it chews and spits out young players daily.
Outlook
While he was written off by many after last season, at this point, it’s safe to say that Klimovich is a prospect who has regained his upside. He arrived faster, implemented and executed positive habits, and ultimately became more dangerous, building to this point where he is a contributor in a high-level professional league.
While it’s fair to be disgruntled about who was available in the 2021 NHL Draft or even doubt the player’s chance of making the NHL, for me, someone who scouted Klimovich in his draft year, it’s clear that massive strides have been taken, to the point where those coveted tools are coming to the fray in a big way.
There are still many questions about whether he has the mettle to operate in the NHL, including what role he would play. Higher-end shot-first quantities like Jonathan Lekkerimäki and, to a lesser extent, Melvin Fernström exist in the organization, adding similar competition to the mix. The future is somewhat murky.
Nevertheless, one thing has remained the same through the ups and downs — Klimovich is an intriguing prospect, just like he was in 2021.
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