Any hope the Vancouver Canucks have of icing a competitive lineup amidst a deep organizational rebuild requires outperformance from their goaltending room. Two weeks into the regular season, that’s not happening.
The Canucks knew they would enter the regular season without starter Thatcher Demko, who is on long-term injured reserve as he recovers from hip surgery. But this is a position Vancouver has invested in beyond Demko, perhaps in part due to the 30-year-old’s lengthy injury history.
The team extended platoon option Kevin Lankinen on a five-year deal last season, and with Demko sidelined until the winter, claimed former Ottawa Senators goaltender Leevi Merilainen off waivers in September. The hope was that a tandem of Lankinen and Merilainen could hold the fort until Demko’s return.
The start from Vancouver has been expectedly poor (2-5-0), but what’s shocked is how one-sided the losses have been.
The Canucks’ offence has been quite good; they’re 13th in rate scoring at 5-on-5 (2.6 goals per 60), and rank 10th in all situations scoring (3.4 goals per 60). Despite the early season success on the attack, Vancouver’s goal differential is dismal (-11), and it’s because they are giving everything back and then some in the defensive zone.
Vancouver is one of two teams conceding more than 5.0 goals per 60 minutes on the season (along with division rival Calgary). They would not be the first young, rebuilding team to struggle on the defensive side of the ice, but I think there was a hope a veteran goaltending room could provide a bit of a safety net for Manny Malhotra’s team.
Merilainen, to his credit, has looked okay behind Vancouver’s shaky blueline. Lankinen, however, has been nothing short of a disaster – his stop rate just above 78 per cent on the year, and he’s already 11 goals worse than a replacement-level goaltender would have performed given the shot profile he has faced.
That’s comfortably dead last in the league, but more concerningly, a sharp divergence from the results we’ve grown accustomed to with Lankinen:
It’s not just that this year’s start has been so grim for Lankinen – it’s a continuation of last year’s troubling play, where he stopped just 87.5 per cent of shots and finished -7 goals above expected across 47 games. If you go back to the day Lankinen inked his multi-year extension, it’s been a nearly perfect downward trend.
These are poor numbers for a depth backup option who is typically competing with top-tier AHL talent for remaining NHL roster spots and a nightmare development for a goaltender once the calibre of Lankinen (who Vancouver is betting on to platoon with Demko for several years ahead.)
And while it’s true playing behind this Vancouver lineup may be one of the more difficult jobs in the entire league, that same job is currently held by the aforementioned Merilainen – a goalie who has managed to stop 93.4 per cent of shots (+3 goals saved versus expected) in four appearances for Vancouver this year.
There isn’t help on the way, not until Demko returns near the holidays anyway. And while Vancouver will likely lean a bit more into Merilainen, it’s important to recognize Merilainen was on waivers for a reason – he was one of the league’s worst-graded goalies a season ago in Ottawa (86 per cent stop rate; -14 goals saved versus expected).
Perhaps a change of scenery has done Merilainen good, but he’s going to need to string together many more games of quality play before confidence in him as a platoon option would materialize.
To that end, it’s critical Vancouver get Lankinen back on track.
Winning may not be the top goal for the Canucks this season, but Malhotra knows he needs a competitive lineup if he’s going to develop some of the younger players on the roster this year.
That’s hard to do when you are constantly pulling pucks out of the back of your net.
Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey, Hockey Reference