[Dhaliwal] Canucks continue to look for a goalie. It appears that Kevin Lankinen is their target. Lankinen had a very strong 2 seasons in Nashville and made $2 million last year. The Canucks salary cap situation will likely make this very difficult to pull off.
by electricnux
11 Comments
Canucks currently only have around 190k in space because Tucker Poolman is not on LTIR and Allvin has talked about wanting to operate outside of LTIR to be able to accrue cap space
Would make sense from Lankinens end. More established than Silovs/Patera/Tolopilo.
And with Demko’s load management, good chance he gets 20-30+ games.
I was hoping he was the guy
If you look at his stats from this past season they are near identical to Saros’ (actually even better that Saros’ albeit in a more limited role and against 2nd tier teams).
He’s also looking for a role where he can have himself a good season and cash in next year.
The issue is he will want some assurances that Demko is going to miss significant time, otherwise this could be a horrible showcase spot for him.
Wonder if this is Demko insurance because he’ll be out longer than what’s currently being reported, or if they’ve decided they do ultimately want Šilovs to have more development before being the full-time backup.
As much excitement as people had for Silovs in the playoffs, I do think this is the right idea. He was just so so in the AHL for the vast bulk of the season and he really could probably use a bit more time to cook, especially with Demko’s long term avaliablity and health kind of a question mark right now. Plus with how close Abby is and Arty’s waiver exempt status they could totally rock a floating three man tandem where they call Silovs up for like 5 games or so to give him a taste during back to backs or whatever. Lankinen probably hasn’t recieved the offers he expected so I’d imagine his price has come down a lot and this could be a good situation for him because if Demko’s not 100% or even if he is they need to load manage so he should get a decent number of games and a big spotlight where he could possibly cash in. Look at Casey last year even though he lost in the net in the playoffs he was able to leverage his season here to a three year deal, pretty solid for a backup.
They really should be load managing Demko as much as possible, they need him 100% or close to it in the playoffs.
If anyone can pull it off, it’s Chef Allvin.
This situation should be more alarming to fans than it seems to be, on more than one level. It’s concerning that we’re only learning about this now, with the new season right around the corner. It’s concerning that management seems to be trapped a little bit trying to deal with it, rather than having done so closer to July 1st. It’s also concerning that Demko’s health continues to trend the wrong direction as far as injury-proneness.
Lankinen to me would instantly become your backup. That leaves Silovs to be the AHL starter, which is ok, and then hopefully play like 10 NHL games. We gotta keep Demko healthy tho. Tbh I wouldn’t mind seeing them go like…
– Demko 45
– Lankinen 20
– Silovs 10-15 (with another 40 or so AHL starts)
– Petera 2-7
Woodley has talked about using a 3 goalie system previously, not where 3 goalies are up but rotating them. I’d love to see Demko not make some of those dumb road trips we have where it’s like 3rd game in 4 nights and it’s a flight to Minnesota and back or whatever. Or when we go out east for 6-7 games maybe he plays the first 2-3 then goes home, or plays 2-3 then watches.
Of course our cap has to allow for this too.
The fact Demko isn’t going to be ready for the start of the season is crazy. The injury will have happened 6 months prior by the time the season starts. wtf happened?
Cap troubles you say 🤔
I bet we move Edmonton’s 4th for cap relief