Thatcher Demko puts a roof on what the Vancouver Canucks are building. A whole lot of mistakes can be hidden safely underneath his abilities. But what about those times he isn’t sheltering the team? We take a closer look at the presumptive Canucks goaltending duo for the 2022-23 season.
Thatcher and Spencer and Dipper, Oh My!
In the Salary Cap Era, there is no more important question than where the money goes. How much to spend on each position is vital to any team. Inefficiencies in one place can lead to forced decisions in others, as the Canucks and their fans well know. An efficient contract, on the other hand, can let a team spend a little more to win over a free agent or keep a player at home. There are few better contracts in the league than Thatcher Demko’s.
With four years to go on his five-year, $25 million deal, Thatcher Demko is an absolute bargain. In his 64 games last year, he saved 15 goals above expected – 10th best in the league, according to HockeyReference – with a .915 save percentage and 2.72 goals against. His GAA is fairly pedestrian until you take the quality of shots he faced into account. That’s where “above expected” comes in.
Jaroslav Halák was decent in his backup role, but won’t be returning this year. He did good work, less two disastrous starts in February. For 2022-23 it looks like Spencer Martin will be the caretaker while Demko is out. Third up is likely Michael DiPietro, unless Arturs Silovs gets called to give DiPietro starts in Abbotsford.
That’s how it looks for now, at least. It would come as a surprise to no one if another NHL veteran is added over the summer. The trick would be adding one who can step into a backup role, but is willing to wait – again as a backup – in the AHL. Knowing they might never get their number called is a hard pill to swallow for a lot of professionals. Add to that the question of where Silovs plays if there’s a veteran on the farm.
Check the Balance
Vancouver wasn’t exactly hiding their desire to make the playoffs last season. That they almost did it reenergized fans throughout the city, turning a hostile crowd into chanting lunatics in all the best ways. But it may have been better for the team if the pressure of making that second season wasn’t there. The Canucks goaltending duo of Demko and Halák were good, but everyone knows who the star is. Halak’s two bad starts came at the worst possible time, and Thatcher Demko was pressed into duty when he was already tired.
This year, they plan to use Demko less. More rest should be easier to attain with the season schedules returning to normal. If he can keep his starts down to around 55, the Canucks will not only get him at his best for the season but for the post-season, too. That’s a big challenge for Spencer Martin, who signed this April to a two-year, one-way deal. So who the heck is he?
The Eternal Footman
The other half of the Canucks goaltending duo, it may dismay some fans to know, has exactly three NHL wins in his career. He was drafted nine years ago, 63rd overall, by the Colorado Avalanche. Before last season, his only opportunities in the NHL were when Colorado was mid-collapse in 2016-17. They finished that season worst in the league at both goals for and against. Martin’s three games didn’t go well for him.
He toiled in the AHL – with a brief ECHL visit to Orlando – on a series of one-year contracts, eventually joining the Tampa Bay Lightning system. Vancouver traded for his services for the bargain price of “We’ll take that contract off your hands.” In other words, “future considerations.” In other other words, nothing. It was a pretty good deal, and the Canucks signed Martin to another one-year, two-way deal for $105,000. expressly as an AHL depth veteran.
Martin’s AHL numbers are unexceptional but steady. He earned a call-up when injuries took their toll, brought up to the taxi squad at the end of December. Then, in late January, he had a three-game run of starts and things got silly. He stopped 113 of 118 shots and dragged four points the Canucks didn’t deserve out of the week. He was sent back to Abbotsford until April, working to get the minors team into the playoffs.
But when he came back up in April for another three-game run, the silliness continued. He got the team five points and had a .940 save percentage. In his six games with the Canucks, Spencer Martin finished at 3-0-3, a 1.74 goals-against average, and a .950 save percentage. He’s earned that new deal.
For The Sequel
All told the Vancouver Canucks goaltending duo will cost the team $5,762,500 for each of the next two seasons. That is if everything works out. The 27-year-old Martin needs to play around 30 NHL games next year to give Demko sufficient rest to keep him at the top of his game. So far, since he was drafted in 2013, he’s played nine.
It would be ridiculous to think he could continue his ludicrous pace from last year over a full season. But if he can come in at a little better than Halák’s numbers, say, a .910 save percentage, that would do. That’s still a high mark for someone who has been a career AHLer, but he obviously meshes well with the team. There is some little risk for the team financially as well, as $760K isn’t a number they want to pay anyone in Abbotsford.
The Vancouver Canucks are in an odd spot. They have a string of playoff misses, but the pressure to make them this year is reasonably low. It is an entirely new management team, and they have yet to really remake the team in their own image. How well they can negotiate the cap space and contracts while managing fan expectations and somehow having success now and in the future is going to be interesting to watch.
There is a good foundation in place with Elias Pettersson, Bo Horvat, and Quinn Hughes to this slightly odd-looking Canucks structure. In Thatcher Demko, they’ve got a solid roof protecting it. But they also need Spencer Martin to keep the place tidy when he’s called upon.
