The Vancouver Canucks have been without the services of starting goaltender Thatcher Demko for the entire early portion of the 2024-25 NHL season; he suffered a knee injury in March and missed several games but returned in time for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
However, after Game 1 against the Nashville Predators, he didn’t play again; Casey DeSmith took over for the next game, followed by Arturs Silovs, who remained in net for the rest of the postseason, which lasted until a Game 7 loss against the rival Edmonton Oilers in the Conference Semi-Finals.
With Demko still not ready to return, Vancouver’s goaltending duties have been shared this season between Silovs and newcomer Kevin Lankinen, who has excelled since his arrival in British Columbia. But there’s good news to be shared.
Demko was back on the ice taking shots from teammates at the end of Vancouver’s morning skate, via Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet on X.
Meanwhile, NHL insider Darren Dreger explained earlier in the week that Demko has yet to take a full practice with his teammates, but that he won’t be pushed by the Canucks, via the Sekeras and Price podcast.
“He’s been going through his goalie workouts, and he has been skating and he has been taking shots, but he hasn’t practiced with the full group,” Dreger explained. “The hope is that Thatcher will return to the full team practice this week. Then, after that, you start looking at a countdown. Now, are we talking several days?”
“Are we still talking in the week-to-week category? One thing we know here is that it’s been pretty evident that the Vancouver Canucks are not going to push Thatcher Demko,” he continued. “They don’t really feel like they need to. He’s been working his ‘you know what’ off in the background to make sure that the problem that he has isn’t going to develop into a bigger problem down the road.”
The Canucks, sans Demko, will take on the Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center in Anaheim on Tuesday night beginning at 10:00 PM EST.
The Canucks have been without Thatcher Demko since April
Having turned into one of the League’s best goaltenders with his best season in 2023-24, Demko’s injury that kept him out of all but one postseason game couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time for the Canucks, who won their division in 2013.
Demko has a career record of 116-81-17 with a 2.79 goals-against average, a .912 save percentage, and eight shutouts. He had his best season as a pro in 2023-24, going 35-14-2 with a 2.45 goals-against average and a career-best five shutouts.
