NHL contract grades: Canucks take a risk giving big money to Thatcher Demko

New York Times

01-07-2025

Goalie Thatcher Demko signs a three-year deal with the Canucks with an $8.5 million AAV.
When Demko is firing on all cylinders, he can be a game-changer in net. His 2023-24 captured just how high his ceiling can be, when he earned 32 quality starts and saved 25.8 goals above expected, which ranked fourth in the league.
But that season also showed what makes him such a wild card in Vancouver: his durability. Injuries ended Demko's year early and limited his postseason to just one game. That carried into 2024-25. And just when he started to shake the rust off in goal after a delayed start, he ended up missing more time with injury. That's why management invested in Kevin Lankinen with a five-year deal carrying a $4.5 million cap hit.
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That Lankinen contract isn't starting goalie money, it's more in the range of a 1A-1B. So there was still room to invest in Demko to form a balanced tandem that gives Vancouver insurance with that injury wild card in mind.
It just doesn't make sense at this cost, or this early.
By extending Demko now, management solidifies a Lankinen-Demko tandem. That gives Canucks a chance to sell high on Arturs Silovs, after he won MVP-honors in the Calder Cup. The free agent goalie market is incredibly thin, and Silovs is very cost-effective, so there could be buyers. As much as it makes sense for management to know that Demko is locked in for another couple of years before dealing Silovs, this extension does hurt Vancouver's trade leverage.
But the biggest risk is the fact that this contract is done a year early, because who knows what might happen this year. Can Demko get back on track after all of last year's ups and downs? He is reportedly healthy and already training, but will that last? Can he get through a full season in an even rotation with Lankinen, or as a 1A, and carry this team into the playoffs? If the answer is no, the team just sunk $13 million into a crease it can't be confident in. That's why it's a short-term deal. But that only protects the Canucks so much.
From Demko's perspective, the contract makes a ton of sense. His last year was filled with ups and downs, and a lot of durability question marks. Now he doesn't have to worry that an injury would derail his chance of a lucrative extension — he already has one in place. Sure, it doesn't have the long-term certainty of a six-plus year deal. But if all goes well over the next three years, the door should be open for another solid contract when he is 33 years old.
The trade-off is an $8.5 million cap hit, which is the same as … Connor Hellebuyck. Only three active goalies have a higher AAV — Andrei Vasilevskiy, Sergei Bobrovsky, and Igor Shesterkin. And while that doesn't account for cap inflation ($8.5 million will be worth 8.2 percent of the cap in 2026-27, while Hellebuyck's cap hit percentage is 8.9 percent), it doesn't move the needle away from bonafide starter money.
Contract grade: B-