Come For The Banter - Stay For The Disappointment
Nucks Fan Rebuild & Retool Center - Come For The Banter - Stay For The Disappointment
You may think we talked all about the Vancouver Canucks' goaltending a couple posts ago, but no! Well, yes, technically, we talked about the goaltenders, but we didn't talk about the goaltending. An important distinction! Knowing what ingredients you have tells you what you can cook; it doesn't tell you how.
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
The Canucks have three goaltenders, all of whom are likely to start in the NHL this season. The defence in front of them will likely have three young players, each with fewer than 100 NHL games experience. They have a new coach, one year after living through a disastrous season of the overly complicated game plan of Adam Foote. And they have, essentially, zero expectations.
Everything and anything the team plans to do relies on what happens with the Canucks and every other team in the league. If they want to trade, they need a team willing to partner up. If there's an injury, it depends on who it is. If they start winning... Okay, no. Not everything is in the realm of possibility,
But we can still look at who's here and what makes the most sense for the players and the team.
The trio starts the year all occupying a share of the crease.
According to Thatcher Demko and the Canucks, he's well on his way to recovering from his surgery many months ago. He's back on the ice, going through a "normal" offseason workout routine, though what's normal for him might not be normal for his younger self. The guy is 30, after all.
Demko says this time is different, but any player will tell you they're ready to go. It's going to be up to the coach - in consultation with Demko - to keep him to a controlled number of games. What does that mean for a starting goaltender? In most cases these days, that's 50-55 games. In Demko's case, ideally 40 healthy games. No back-to-backs, definitely. Heck, no more than two games a week would be great.
And that "40 games" is over the full season. The Canucks can get away with that because they have a perfectly decent 2A in Kevin Lankinen. Lankinen's boxcar stats looked pretty lousy, but frankly so did damn near everyone else's. He was the rule, not the exception, with Vancouver last year. Lankinen also put in 47 games one year after a 51-game season. He can, at the very least, handle a heavier workload. We just don't want him to.
Again, Vancouver has no reason to drive one of their goaltenders into the ice. Taking it easy on Demko's schedule can mean everything from the number of games to not taking him on shorter road trips at all. A two-game trip? Go with Lankinen and Nikita Tolopilo! Even if Lankinen starts both games, Tolopilo can handle the practice time with the skaters with him and manage the gate on the bench. They'll be fine.
As for Tolopilo, he is now eligible for waivers, so putting him in the minors in the first place is fraught. He has some skill, and another team could easily lift him for free. What he doesn't have is a lot of experience. He survived 21 games with Vancouver last year, though, and that's not nothing. It's a bit tough to judge just how good he was, given the chaos, but he's not as bad as his numbers.
Should Vancouver hang on to all three goalies this season with, say, a 40/30/12 split in starts, that could work out. Demko has a healthy year, with possibly increased trade interest; Lankinen still earns his time for his money; and Tolopilo will show what he can do at the NHL level WITHOUT needing a fire extinguisher in his gear.
That would be Demko, folks, not Lankinen. The Canucks are going to have a very young team this year, and having a steady hand can only help. There is some idea that if Demko comes back as his old self, he could win some games single-handedly. That's where discipline from Manny Malhotra comes in: it doesn't matter how good he is, keep Demko's starts to 40 games.
The easy way to do that, of course, would be trading him away before the season even starts. The return on that would be his cap space and nothing else, though. And there probably won't be a whole lot of takers, even at that price.
There is an argument in favour of moving Demko ASAP, assuming he agrees to waive his no-move clause. The first is his salary coming off the books, which probably won't be replaced. A bad deal might come back, but more likely it would be a numbers game, contract for contract. A second benefit could be giving Tolopilo more ice time, which is a stretch to call a benefit, and we're only at "two".
Having an experienced hand as the last line of defence is a confidence booster for young players. They are less likely to be afraid of making mistakes, assuming Malhotra is on board with playing the kids. And if he isn't, there's been a terrible misunderstanding by someone. No offence to Lankinen, but he's a good worker, while Demko can be a star.
Of course, if Demko does regain his form, then there could certainly be a market for a team desperate to prove themselves in the playoffs. Some possible trade partners are Vegas, Edmonton, New Jersey, Ottawa, maybe Florida if Jacob Markstrom has a down year. There's quite the difference between the clubs, some pushing for a good showing, others for the Stanley Cup, and others could emerge. The key to any of them is desperation, and all those teams have pressure to get results.
Should Demko put together the type of season he wants, then he might well play himself onto a contender. The plan he signed on for obviously fell apart, so it wouldn't be a surprise if he agreed to move to a contender. Again, the return might not be much, but it should be a lot more than at the start of the year.
And if he's doing all that well, then moving him away fits right in with Vancouver's long-term goals. Ty Young and Aku Koskenvuo can keep their ice in Abbotsford, and we'll see Lankinen and Tolopilo. Top- er, bottom-five finish, here we come!
Okay, moving out Tolopilo doesn't necessarily make sense, and it's still a possibility. After all, he does need to pass waivers, and getting enough time for three keepers is a pain. Grab that fifth-round pick for him before some team gets him for free, and get another team's waiver sacrifice to shuttle between Abby and Vancouver if needed.
A move like this is definitely trying to improve by inches, and if the Canucks were a contender, it could even make sense. But they aren't, and frankly, it doesn't. Unless he or his agent asked the team to make the move, it wouldn't even save them money.
