For a minute there, the crease of the Vancouver Canucks was in perhaps the best shape it had ever been.
The Canucks were set to skate into the 2024/25 season with both Vezina runner-up Thatcher Demko and playoff/international hero Arturs Silovs locked up for a total cap hit of just $5.85 million. That’s less than most teams spend on their starters alone, and the Canucks had their two netminders signed to that hit for the next two years running.
The good news is that Demko and Silovs are still signed to those same contracts and will presumably form the Canucks’ goaltending tandem at some point in the upcoming season. The bad news? Well, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you already know. Demko isn’t healthy yet, and he may not be for some time – with his recovery now potentially taking him into October and the regular season.
It’s a little jarring to go from ‘perfect budget set-up’ to ‘scrambling to find a temporary replacement veteran’ in the span of a few weeks. That suddenness of the news has left many in the fanbase and media sphere unsettled.
But is it really all that big of a problem?
So long as Demko does return eventually and is actually at 100% when he does (or as close to that as modern medicine can approximate), this issue is both short-term and easily managed.
In fact, the waiver wire is almost guaranteed to offer the Canucks several solid solutions if they’re able to just wait another month.
There’s been talk of signing UFA Kevin Lankinen to fill in for Demko. That’s a fine enough option, goaltending-wise, but Lankinen did earn a $2 million cap hit last year, and the Canucks have no business paying another goalie anything like that. If Lankinen doesn’t come at a steep discount, the team should look elsewhere – and this outcome seems likely, given that Lankinen hasn’t signed yet.
There’s been some talk of trade targets, perhaps purchased using the fourth-round pick the team obtained in exchange for Vasily Podkolzin. But it’s difficult to find anyone worth that amount on the trade market, especially without retention entering the mix, which is something that might cost more than a fourth.
The waiver wire offers an essentially cost-free method of obtaining a new goalie. And the overstuffed ranks of the goaltender union means that there should be some quality individuals available through waivers soon enough.
Predicting which forwards and defence might hit waivers in September or October is usually a difficult undertaking. Predicting which goalies might hit it is easier. One just has to look at the league’s goaltending depth charts and find teams with at least three NHL-level goalies on hand. In most cases, at least one of those goalies will be waived at some point prior to the start of the season.
The Los Angeles Kings will have veterans Darcy Kuemper, Dave Rittich, and Pheonix Copley in camp. Either Rittich or Copley would made a fine, cheap, veteran waiver grab.
The Winnipeg Jets are going to have to pick between Kaapo Kahkonen and Eric Comrie to be Connor Hellebuyck’s backup. The other will go to waivers.
James Reimer probably gets beat out for a spot in Buffalo by the younger Devin Levi, leaving him to waivers.
The Detroit Red Wings have all of Ville Husso, Cam Talbot, Alex Lyon, and top prospect Sebastian Cossa competing for a job in camp. Husso is the most likely to be cut, and both he and Talbot would be too pricey for the Canucks to pick up…but if it’s Lyon who hits waivers instead, that’s a great get.
If Spencer Knight returns to NHL action full-time this year behind Sergei Bobrovsky, they’ll need to waive the goalie they signed as backup in Chris Driedger, who now seems to be fully recovered from injury.
Toronto will be waiving Matt Murray, though if the Canucks picked him up, you’d just have to laugh.
Old pal Spencer Martin looks likely to be edged out by Pyotr Kochetkov and Freddie Andersen in Carolina, meaning he’s going right back on waivers.
Another old pal, Louis Domingue, is stuck behind Igor Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick in New York and will likely be waived.
And honestly? That list is just the result of a casual browse through team depth charts for excessively obvious candidates. That’s at least eight teams that will probably be waiving a quality goalie before the regular season begins – or, at least, waiving a goalie of a high enough quality to platoon with Silovs in the short term.
The number could be higher in the end.
Such goalies might even be a better fit than, say, a Lankinen. If the Canucks sign a Lankinen, that signing comes with the assumption of playing time. Meanwhile, a goalie snagged off waivers is presumably happy just to stay in the NHL and wouldn’t mind backing up Silovs if the young goaltender took the reins out of camp.
There are, of course, some downsides to waiting on the waiver wire. It means the Canucks would have to potentially skate through the entire preseason schedule with just Silovs, Jiri Patera, and Nikita Tolopilo in net, though that doesn’t seem like a big problem.
There is also the aspect of having the decisions be in another team’s hands. Not only does a team have to cut a goalie before they hit waivers, but all the other teams ranked ahead of the Canucks in the waiver standings have to also choose not to claim them thereafter before the Canucks get a chance.
But the odds of the Canucks coming up totally empty on waivers are very low because that would mean that a bunch of other teams put in claims, and there just aren’t that many open goalie jobs around the league.
If the Canucks feel confident enough in Demko’s return that any replacement is truly necessary, they can probably afford to wait and see what waivers will offer.
If they want more of a hand on the wheel, they could always blend the trade and waiver options by waiting until a goalie is about to be waived and then offering a sixth or seventh-round pick in exchange.
Either way, this new goaltending “controversy” seems like something that can almost solve itself within a matter of weeks.
It’s perfectly reasonable to be stressed about Demko’s health – but there’s not much need to worry about snagging a decent fill-in.
