Vancouver Canucks: Certainty between the pipes this fall
The Vancouver Canucks will see some turnover within their forward group. Their defence still has questions around it, but we can be absolutely certain about who should be in net this fall.
A rollercoaster isn’t a bad way to describe the Vancouver Canucks goaltending this season. The team rode high when the goaltending was too good to be true. A short month and a half later, and the needle swung to the other extreme, where the Canucks couldn’t buy a save.
December was cold in more ways than one as neither Jacob Markstrom nor Anders Nilsson could get something going. This was the lowest point in the Canucks season. Well, perhaps the loss of Brock Boeser to injury was rock bottom, but this was a close second.
Vancouver was being blown out night after night amidst a couple of key injuries that exposed a very shallow roster. Lack of depth is a serious issue, but at some point, you need your netminder to stop some more pucks.
As with every extreme, things eventually settled out towards the middle. However, the middle involved losing a lot of games. Things could have been as bleak as the end of last season where Willie Desjardins‘ squad went gentle into that good night.
A different ending; an obvious solution
Travis Green got his team to play for something. It turns out that something was the retirement of the two greatest players to ever wear a Canucks jersey. Despite the damage they did to their lottery odds and Brandon Sutter‘s strange obsession with catching the 25th place Blackhawks, the team showed some life.
More from The Canuck Way
- Which team won the Bo Horvat trade?
- What to expect from newcomers Anthony Beauvillier, Aatu Räty
- Back to the future: How the skate uniforms became a regular Canucks’ feature night
- Canucks kick off 2023 with disappointing 6-2 loss to Islanders
- 2nd period penalty trouble sinks Canucks in 4-2 loss against Winnipeg
Better yet, Thatcher Demko got his first taste of the NHL. It wasn’t perfect and he got some timely bounces, but he got a win. Demko is a top-five goaltender in the AHL and may be the best player from the Canucks draft choices in 2014.
Which me brings me to the easy solution. On the surface, the Canucks have three goalies going into training camp competing for two spots. Honestly, I think it’s a safe bet to say that Thatcher Demko is penciled in and this is his spot to lose.
Anders Nilsson started off well, but this is why we warn people about small sample sizes. It didn’t help his case that he couldn’t get a string of games in a row to bump up his trade value. But, Travis Green made up his mind when you saw how he favoured Markstrom for the back half of the year.
Markstrom isn’t the best goalie out there. However, he is better at being the necessary stop gap until Demko is ready. Nilsson only has a year left on his contract whereas Markstrom has two. Unless we see something unbelievable in camp, Nilsson is already on his way to the minors this fall. A trade could be in the works in the offseason, but I think a team interested in him would prefer to acquire him through the free agent route.
Conclusion
It’s still weird to talk about the Canucks without a goalie controversy. In November, we were hoping there was something there, but the controversy fizzled out into nothing by the new year. I still don’t see a future issue between Demko and Markstrom. Just a quiet transition of power over the next few years.
Let’s me be perfectly clear. Thatcher Demko won’t get most of the starts. However, I hope he gets more than just one of the back-to-backs on the schedule. Would 20-25 starts be crazy? I don’t think so. And we all know Markstrom will lay a stinker at points during the season, so the opportunity is there.
Next: What to expect from Olli Juolevi next season
I don’t expect the Vancouver Canucks to be much better next season. There are many questions that surround their forward group and defensive core. At least there is one thing certain for Jim Benning next season: his goalies are already set.