Dmitry Voronkov opened Columbus – Kommersant

The first notable loss of the KHL this offseason was Dmitry Voronkov. One of the brightest young forwards in the league, who had just played in the Gagarin Cup final for Ak Bars, went to the NHL club Columbus Blue Jackets. His status as an outsider undergoing a personnel restructuring provides Voronkov with a good chance of getting into the base, where two other domestic forwards Kirill Marchenko and Yegor Chinakhov will play next to him.

Columbus Blue Jackets announced about signing a two-year contract with Russian forward Dmitry Voronkov, chosen by him in the 2019 draft, who played for Ak Bars in the final series of the Gagarin Cup against CSKA in April. Commenting on him, Columbus general manager Jarmo Kekalainen called Voronkov “a big, strong forward who can play both in the center and on the edge”, has versatility and had an “amazing season” in the KHL.

For the domestic league, the departure of this hockey player is an absolute loss. Voronkov, 22, is one of the brightest young Russian forwards. Before the removal of the Russian team from participation in international competitions last spring, despite his age, he managed to play for her at the 2021 World Championships and the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, where she won gold. In Ak Bars, Voronkov was one of the leaders. In the last regular season with 18 goals, he was the team’s third sniper, and scored the most winning goals – 5. In the playoffs, Voronkov also looked very good. In 24 matches, he scored 12 points, hitting the opponents’ goal 8 times: this is the 5th indicator in the league.

In favor of the fact that Dmitry Voronkov will be able to immediately gain a foothold at the heart of Columbus, in addition to his background, two factors speak.

• The first is the striker’s style of play, ideal for the NHL. Voronkov is extremely effective in the fight and plays on the patch, while controlling the puck well.
• The second factor is the status of Columbus.

In the last regular season, this club shared the second place in the standings with the Chicago Blackhawks from the end and was clearly in the mood for a large-scale personnel restructuring, in order to refresh the roster with players with a perspective to the maximum. At the same time, Columbus already has a successful experience with the integration of Dmitry Voronkov’s Russian peers into it, who first found themselves in the NHL. In the previous season, Egor Chinakhov quickly adapted to Columbus, who, however, missed most of the current season due to injury. And in the next championship, Kirill Marchenko unexpectedly shot. Marchenko was connected to the base already during the championship, and in 59 matches played he scored 21 goals: this is the third result in a club that is in dire need of dangerous strikers.

Alexey Dospekhov