Thatcher Demko is still questionable for the season opener, and the Vancouver Canucks suddenly have a crowded crease.
Every organization says it wants depth. Almost none of them mean it the way Vancouver is about to find out.
Demko's hip has him listed day-to-day, still labeled questionable for the start of the year after last season's surgery.
When he played, he wasn't the Vezina finalist Vancouver remembers. Just 20 games, 6 wins, an .895 save percentage.
Kevin Lankinen carried the heaviest load in his absence, 47 games and a .875 save percentage, hardly a disaster but hardly a solution.
Nikita Tolopilo also got a real look, 21 games and a .881 save percentage, the kind of stint that raised a few eyebrows around the league.
None of that changes the fact Vancouver would trade every ounce of this depth for one thing: Demko healthy and reliable, night after night.
Why too many goalies is actually the good kind of problem
Here's the twist. This mess of options might be exactly what a rebuilding team needs right now.
Tolopilo is only 26 and still cheap, at $775,000 against the cap. Vancouver has to decide if he's worth exposing to waivers if the roster gets tight.
Lose him for nothing, and a division rival gets a goalie who just proved something real in a midseason stretch.
That's the kind of decision new head coach Manny Malhotra and this front office didn't even have to think about a year ago.
Behind that trio sits Abbotsford, where Ty Young and Aku Koskenvuo are developing without much NHL mileage yet.
Neither goaltender is ready to be handed the net full-time. But both give Vancouver actual insurance if injuries pile up in October.
Preseason moves fast. Camp battles get decided in a couple weeks, not a couple months, and decisions on waivers won't wait for certainty.
Vancouver finished 25-49-8 last season, dead last in the league at 32nd overall. This isn't a team that can afford to get goaltending wrong twice.
A rebuild takes patience from everybody involved, the front office trusting its process, the fans trusting the front office, the players trusting each other.
Demko's health decides how urgent all of this becomes. Everything else is just Vancouver learning what a genuine goaltending decision actually feels like.
Should the Canucks risk losing Nikita Tolopilo on waivers to keep their roster flexible?
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