Thatcher Demko injury situation continues to cause frustrating uncertainty

If Wednesday night's season opener reinforced anything, it is just how important Thatcher Demko truly is to the Vancouver Canucks. After building a seemingly insurmountable 4-1 lead through one period, they completely self-capitulated as they went on to somehow lose 6-5 in overtime to the Calgary Flames.

Now we're not saying this type of defensive performance is going to be a regular horror show in Vancouver as such. However, the sooner Demko can return to action, the better.

Of course this leads to the question of when exactly this will be? This has been particularly tough to get an idea of after the recent confirmation that Demko is dealing with popliteus tendinopathy, which is an extremely rare injury, particularly for an NHL player.

It doesn't help, that Demko already had a reputation for being injury prone as it is. Now, he's dealing with a situation which requires him to completely alter the way he practices and prepares for games, as surgery is not an option.

Latest injury update on Demko

Which brings us to the latest report pertaining to when the 28-year-old will return, and it won't exactly inspire Canucks fans. Giving due credit to Daniel Wagner of Vancouver is Awesome, Rick Dhaliwal of Donnie and Dhali – The Team said on Monday that Demko will not be back anytime soon, with a target date of some point in November.

Even if we take the (extremely) optimistic outlook of saying Demko will be back for the Canucks' first game in November, this means him still missing at least another eight starts. However, this really is the best-case scenario for a player who at one point the Canucks said would be back during last season's playoffs!

In truth, we are sceptical about accepting any timeline for Demko's return. Pure and simple, the reality is the Canucks just don't know when he will be back between the pipes.

Friedman being non-committal

Along these lines, it's actually comments from Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman, which come closer to what the situation truly is with Demko. During an appearance on Donnie and Dhali – The Team, he said:

"I'm being really careful about not putting a timeline on on this, but the one thing I'm definitely hearing is that (the Canucks) are going to take their time here, and there's no rush and they think they're more than capable of handling things at the start of the year with (Artūrs) Šilovs and (Kevin) Lankinen. That the team is good enough and those two are good enough and they will take their time. There is no rush here on Demko and as a result I'm not really that interested in putting a time frame on it."

When one of the most respected and well-connected NHL journalists is unwilling to offer even a provisional timeline on Demko's return, this speaks volumes. What we take from that is that the Canucks are just going to continue to be cautious and do absolutely nothing to set Demko back or cause him to have a relapse in his recovery. (Although you can argue they've already done this in how they previously reportedly mishandled his injury.)

What will be interesting to see is how the Canucks react, if it turns out that Šilovs and Lankinen can't handle the load during Demko's continued absence. Again, we don't expect regular repeats of Wednesday night's defensive horror show, but it must be making the front office a little nervous that their backup plan could well blow up in their faces.

Ultimately though, whatever happens in the meantime, everything is focused on the end game of Demko being back in the Canucks net. Concern will only continue to grow though, if his continued absence extends into more months rather than additional weeks.

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