If there was any angst in the Vancouver market regarding the sooner-than-expected demotions of notable, popular and fun Canucks prospects Hunter Shinkaruk and Jordan Subban during training camp, then it was relegated to Twitter, fan message boards and the occasional super nerdy hockey bar conversation. 
Certainly neither player said boo, and neither did their agents. Meanwhile, team officials went out of their way to praise both players (Canucks assistant coach Perry Pearn ladled it on thick when discussing the possibility of a Shinkaruk recall this season, for example). There’s been no Cody Hodgson-like back and forth in the press, and there isn’t likely to be.
The same sense of ‘cooler heads prevailing’ doesn’t apply to the situation that Boston Bruins forward Alex Khoklachev finds himself in at the moment. The skilled, Russian-born forward had some extraordinary comments last week in which he suggested that, perhaps, he hadn’t received a fair shot to earn a spot on the team over the past few seasons. Inevitably, a variety of rumours – ranging from Khoklachev heading to the KHL, or being dangled in a possible Dustin Byfuglien deal – are beginning to fly. 
Let’s get in on it: does trading for Khoklachev make sense for the Canucks?
Before we proceed, let’s recap the situation as it stands. This particular conflagration was set off by Khoklachev himself, who allowed his frustration to boil over recently and said the following on the record, courtesy NESN:
“This is my last year of contract. I’m 22 already. If they don’t give me the chance to play, why am I here? I will not play in Providence all my life.
I played in Providence two years and was the leading scorer for two years. I think I played good, and I’m not a young guy anymore, 22. I think I’m ready for the chance.
(Addressing the three games he spent with the Bruins in November 2014) Well, I played two games and the third game I played two minutes. I don’t think that’s really a chance. I played fourth line — it doesn’t matter what line I play — but I don’t know if that’s really a chance if you play two games.
I’m just focused on making (Boston’s roster). That’s my team, they drafted me. I think they believe in me and want me to play, so I’m just focusing on that. I believe they will give me a chance and everything will be good.”
Fun stuff.
What obviously ensued, particularly as a result of the ‘I will not play in Providence my whole life’ haymaker, is that rumours of Khoklachev heading to SKA St. Petersburg – the KHL club that owns his rights – began to pick up steam. It even got to the point where Khoklachev’s agent felt the need to address the rumours:
“At the present time Alexander Khokhlachev is at the Boston Bruins training camp, has one more year [on his] NHL deal and does his best to be the Bruin. In this circumstance we can’t and we don’t talk to SKA St. Petersburg, the KHL team, who has his rights in Russia.
Regarding Alexander’s interview several days ago, all I can say that we really want hockey people to hear how much he wants to be an NHL player and nothing about complaints or other innuendo – just a simple statement of facts.”
It seems highly likely that ‘at the present time’ and ‘we really want hockey people to hear how much he wants to be an NHL player’ seem more pointed than Khoklachev’s agent intended. Still, those comments won’t serve to dampen speculation about Khoklachev’s immediate future and whether he fits in with the Bruins organization’s long-term plans.
Bruins general manager Don Sweeney also discussed the situation and seemed to indicate that the controversial comments didn’t impact how the Bruins rate Khoklachev as a player. Khoklachev’s two-way game on the other hand…
“You look at [Khokhlachev] and you say that’s confident in his own abilities,” Sweeney told CSNNE’s Joe Haggerty. “Privately we’ve had a lot of conversations with him to understand what it takes to be a complete hockey player. He’ll continue to get a chance. We’ve done that, and we’re going to continue to do that with all our players.”
Would the Canucks have interest in a player like Khoklachev? You’d have to think they would.
Not only does the 22-year-old forward fit in with general manager Jim Benning’s demonstrated m.o. of targeting successful AHLers in their early 20s, but Benning has a tonne of familiarity with Khoklachev. The Bruins drafted Khoklachev from the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Hockey League back in 2011 when Benning was with the Bruins organization and Haggerty described Khoklachev as one of Benning’s ‘pet players’ back when the Canucks first hired their current GM back in the spring of 2014.
In some grainy footage I found of Benning discussing the Bruins draft in 2011, the Canucks’ general manager lays it on pretty thick when discussing Khoklachev’s skillset.
“He’s one of those guys that can turn on a dime so he’s hard to track. He’s so elusive,” Benning said of Khoklachev on his draft day. “He’s not tall but he’s a big kid, he’s strong, and he fits our core values of work ethic, character, and skill.”
Continued Benning later in the interview:
“He’ll score, he’ll go into the hard areas, he’ll pay the price to score goals or set them up. So he plays a North American style game already.”
As for what Khoklachev can do, he’s a left-shooting centreman who has led the Providence Bruins in scoring in two consecutive seasons despite being 20 and 21 in those campaigns (he was one of the youngest players in the 2011 draft class). Though he’s been tuned up in the faceoff circle during the preseason (he won three of 16 draws on Tuesday night), there’s no doubt that he’s a natural centreman.
Khoklachev’s point totals decreased from his age-20 to age-21 season, which you never like to see, although Providence as a whole scored 24 fewer goals in 2014-15 than they managed the year prior, which may serve to partially explain the drop. It should also be mentioned that the Baby Bruins weren’t a particularly good puck possession team and controlled fewer than 50 percent of all shots on goal, according to HockeyStats.ca. 
The Prospect Cohort Success metric regards the likelihood of Khoklachev developing into an everyday NHL player very highly. Though his PCS percentage dropped from 50 percent to 40 percent this season, that’s still a sky-high number. Khoklachev would arguably be a bit of a redundant piece on a club that already has left-handed centreman like Bo Horvat and Jared McCann in the system, but you can never have enough centreman in the system and he’s an excellent bet to emerge as an NHL-caliber forward.
The problem, or at least a major problem, is that the Boston Bruins aren’t a pure rebuilding team at this stage, and may not be after draft picks or NHL-level middle-six wingers, which is something the Canucks have. What they’re more likely to be in the market for is NHL-level defensive help to offset training camp injuries to Dennis Seidenberg and Zdeno Chara, and NHL-level defensive help isn’t something the Canucks possess much of. 
Perhaps Vancouver could dangle a player like Frank Corrado as the centrepiece of some sort of Khoklachev package, but considering the relative strength of the Canucks’ organizational depth at centre and their dearth of quality blue-line prospects, that seems like a stretch.