The Vancouver Canucks’ brutal schedule to open the season is coming home to roost: they’ve called up a goalie just to give Thatcher Demko and Kevin Lankinen a little more rest.
The NHL team is bringing up veteran depth goalie Jiri Patera from Abbotsford. In their announcement, the team said the recall is under “emergency conditions” meaning there’s illness or injury concern with one of the Canucks’ main goalies.
CHEK-TV’s Rick Dhaliwal said Thatcher Demko needed a “maintenance day.” As of yet, the team hasn’t commented on the move beyond making it official.
If it’s indeed just to give Demko a little rest, that’s pretty telling about how demanding the season has been so far since the Canucks, finally got an extra day off on Thursday.
Patera, for the record, was signed by the Canucks before the 2024-25 season as a little extra insurance for the system. He played 8 NHL games in his previous stint with Vegas, but otherwise has played in the minors.
He was not at practice on Friday as he had travelled with the Abbotsford Canucks to Colorado, where they are playing a two-game set vs. the Eagles, instead the Canucks had a practice goalie in the goal opposite Kevin Lankinen.
Canucks GM Patrik Allvin said the move was mostly precautionary, saying that if they would have to dress Patera on Saturday, it made no sense to wait until then call him up and run the risk of him having flight problems.
The Canucks host the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday at Rogers Arena.
More to come