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With Thatcher Demko an apparent question mark for training camp, what are the Vancouver Canucks to do with their goalie depth?
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Published Aug 27, 2024 • Last updated 23 minutes ago • 3 minute read
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With Thatcher Demko an apparent question mark for training camp, what are the Vancouver Canucks to do with their goalie depth? Photo by Derek Cain /Getty Images
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There’s less than a month to go until training camp but it’s still not clear which goalies will be on the ice in Penticton when the Vancouver Canucks get things going.
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Let’s take a look at what we know right now.
Thatcher Demko’s health
InGoal Magazine’s Kevin Woodley suggested last week that Demko won’t be ready to start training camp. Did he have a procedure at some point this summer? That’s the speculation, but no one is saying anything on the record.
Demko’s agent isn’t commenting and team sources are minimizing the situation: “don’t know enough to say what the timeline is” is pretty much the stock response.
But given the reporting by Woodley and CHEK-TV’s Rick Dhaliwal, it will not be a shock to see Demko not on the ice when camp begins. Dhaliwal and Thomas Drance further mused in The Athletic about whether Demko would even be able to start the season.
Silovs and Patera and Tolopilo
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As it stands, we know there will be at least three goalies in camp to start: presumptive backup Arturs Silovs, former Vegas third-stringer Jiri Patera, signed as a free agent this summer to provide depth, and giant Nikita Tolopilo, who had good first season in the AHL last winter but who remains very much a project player.
Silovs we know can give the Canucks NHL-quality starts. Patera has played eight games in the NHL to date and been solid enough in the AHL, but he’s far from a proven player at the NHL level.
So that’s two goalies who have faced NHL shooters in the past and will provide the Canucks’ players with quality-enough opposition.
And then there’s Tolopilo, whose development curve has been like a rocket over the past three years, first in Sweden, then in Abbotsford. Working with now-Canucks goalie coach Marko Torenius, he pretty much took over the starter’s job from Silovs midseason, but in the end it was Silovs who remained most NHL-ready and got the call when Demko suffered a late-season knee injury.
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He’s proven he can handle AHL shooters, but NHL shooters are still another level.
A PTO?
So the Canucks surely want a fourth goalie in camp. The Abbotsford Canucks do have Jocelyn Lemieux under contract to serve as their depth goalie, but he spent all of last season in the ECHL. He could do in a pinch, but that’s hardly the kind of prep the Canucks will want, let alone leaving them very thin for their six-game schedule of exhibition games.
That’s why it would seem the Canucks have called around to some of the experienced free agent goalies out there to see if they’d come to camp on a professional tryout (a.k.a. PTO).
But so far, there’s been no takers.
A free agent?
Realistically, if you’re a goalie like Kevin Lankinen, who the Canucks apparently have approached, you’re not going to take any old offer. You’ve proven yourself as an NHL goalie. You should have a job, somewhere.
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The Canucks, of course, can point out that there aren’t many jobs left out there and even coming on a PTO to Vancouver is a step closer to getting back in the league than otherwise. And sure, it could yet come to that for Lankinen, but there’s no reason for him to commit to anything less than a contract; another team may run into injury trouble between then and now, for instance.
The Canucks already have 48 players on NHL contracts — you’re allowed 50 — so that’s surely a factor in this situation as well.
A waivers claim?
If worst comes to worst and Demko isn’t ready for the start of the season — and the Canucks go through camp without signing a goalie like Lankinen — it’s a certainty they’ll look to the waiver wire.
There will be a few goalies with NHL experience who will be on waivers before the season; Detroit, for instance, has four goalies with NHL experience on their roster right now. The Canucks could claim a goalie off waivers, start the season with him in a tandem with Silovs, then waive him when Demko is ready to return.
A trade?
The other option, of course, would be to swing a deal for an experienced goalie, as they did last year: the trade for Casey DeSmith last fall didn’t happen until the eve of training camp.
If the Canucks do have a clearer timeline on Demko’s situation over the next few weeks, that’s a conceivable option.
pjohnston@postmedia.com
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