Thatcher Demko getting re-signed as soon as he was eligible leaves a big impression. The "Team America" squad - though they are a LOT smarter than anyone in the movie - is back and happy to move forward. For that feeling to last into the season, the team is relying heavily on who tends net.
Banana splits are great. A 7-10 split when you're bowing sucks. You have to split firewood before it's useful. Splitting up with a long-time partner is a miserable experience, even if it's the right thing to do. You can see where this is going, yeah?
Thatcher Demko is a well-established starter in the NHL. Kevin Lankinen played more than 40 games for the first time last season. And Artūrs Šilovs just backstopped his AHL club to the Calder Cup, but his NHL trial had miserable results.
Demko is an excellent goaltender under normal conditions. Unfortunately, those conditions aren't frequent enough to be considered "normal" anymore. In his six full seasons, he has played 232 out of a possible 492 regular-season games and just five in the playoffs.
That's a lot less than half the available games. He has played more than 40 games in a season twice and been excellent both times. But he has more frequently been injured, trying to ignore an injury, or recovering from an injury.
Demko has one more year to go on his current contract, then the new three-year, $8.5 million deal kicks in. The assumption is that he'll be healthy for it, but that's no guarantee. He didn't start last year until December, missed most of April and March, and couldn't finish out the season.
Very, very few people knew what a popliteus muscle is before Demko's potentially career-ending injury happened. And if it happens again, that could be the end of his career. So the apparent plan is to give him frequent breaks, avoiding three-game weeks.
Spending $8.5 million on one of the best goaltenders in the league isn't unreasonable - but he should also be the clear-cut starter. Making sure Demko doesn't overtax his repaired knee means he's starting 40-45 games if everything goes well.
Suddenly, that $8.5 million doesn't look great. But if he gets hot in the right six weeks, he'll be worth every penny.
Backing up Demko will be Kevin Lankinen, who is on his third team in five NHL seasons. The plan was to split time between him and Šilovs until Demko recovered. That didn't work out, and Lankinen was press-ganged into service, appearing in 51 games in 2024-25. Twice, he started ten of eleven games, and the overwork showed.
This should be familiar with any Canucks fans who remember Jacob Markström's tenure. He was excellent, but if he played too many games in a row, his accuracy dropped. He would start to drift from his positioning or start his moves early. It seems like Lankinen needs the same breaks to keep his game on track.
Lankinen has some brilliant moments in his highlight reels, but more important is his reliability. He's got a very high floor, giving Vancouver a consistency that doesn't need highlight saves that often. A five-year, $4.5 million is high for a backup, but for a 1B getting 35-40 games, it's fine.
People will pay an awful lot for a backup parachute if their first one tears. Best to have it on hand rather than wait until you need one.
The fame trajectory of Artūrs Šilovs is fascinating. He's travelled from Who to Hero to Goat - then to GOAT - in seven months. Except for that last step, it's the Spencer Martin Story all over again.
Šilovs was given the backup role to start 2024-25 after his surprisingly steady playoff performance the previous season. It didn't work out for him or the Canucks, unfortunately. His job was taken over before the season started with Lankinen's signing, and he couldn't bring home an opening-night 4-1 lead against division rival Calgary.
Things didn't get better for him from there. Not in the NHL, anyway. The only team he could beat was the bottom-feeding Chicago Blackhawks, though he did do that twice. Šilovs was sent back to Abbotsford when Demko was healthy enough to play.
There, he rebuilt his confidence all the way to winning the Calder Cup, playing 24 games to do it and winning the Jack A. Butterfield Trophy as playoff MVP. His five shutouts were five more than he managed in the regular season, AHL or NHL.
That might be enough to inspire another team to claim him off waivers. His cap hit of just $850K makes him a minimal risk, but any team that does claim him will need to pass him through waivers themselves or else keep him in the NHL.
Šilovs hasn't done well in backup minutes yet, and he's not going to be an NHL starter next season. That's a big reason why his trade value is as low as it is, despite his AHL success. Trade him for a mid-round pick, or hope he sneaks his way to Abbotsford?
Speaking of which, Abbotsford has Nikita Tolopilo and Ty Young in their plans, unless Aku Koskenvuo can bump one of them down to the ECHL. Tolopilo has the inside track there, but Young showed well in his AHL call-up and was excellent down in Kalamazoo. He deserves a shot.
Sounds like I'm missing someone, right? Right: Jiří Patera. Patera started the season with Abbotsford, but only played seven games before he was injured for the season. Patera has some NHL experience and another season to go on his contract. That's an ideal description of a third-string goaltender, but the team wants Young to face tougher competition than the ECHL.
Patera is an unrestricted free agent after next season, and that alone might keep him out of the cycle. He also has yet to play since his November knee injury, so he'll need to regain the team's trust. He's NHL-capable, but if he's not a prospect that might be the end of him in the Canucks system.
As for Koskenvuo, he's finishing his college career with Harvard and wants pro minutes. He'll likely battle Young for AHL time, but both will be behind Tolopilo and his new two-year deal.
Sure, it's a mess in goal for the Vancouver Canucks. But isn't having too many qualified goalies a refreshing change?
