Coconuts

He did play for the Moose for two seasons back in the day. I think he just wasn't willing to put in the work to get to the NHL level and got bypassed on the depth chart by the likes of Kevin Bieska and Alex Edler in no time. I also think that the lack of Russians probably played a role in his departure too since the only other Russian on the Moose, at the time, was Fedor Federov who infamously got knocked out BY Bieksa.

It would have been nice if Koltsov had turned into... something... but it just didn't work, it seems.

At least he was willing to play in the minors. 

So I give him credit for doing something Tram is loathe to do. 

It was a bit of a disaster when Smyl took the head coaching position on the Moose (where he never had that position before - at least as a head coach at a fairly high level of hockey).  Unless I have the timelines wrong, Kolstov played for the Moose during this same period.