Confirmed with Link: Canucks Sign G Kevin Lankinen to 1y/0.875m Contract

[Vector]

 

[TruGr1t]

Somewhere, Kevin Woodley is euphoric because of this post.

 

[VanJack]

Got to feel a twinge of sympathy for Lankinen tonight in Edmonton.....he's being thrown to the wolves just to get the Canucks through another meaningless exhibition game.

I suppose the 'positive' is, he'll stare down a bevy of high-end chances and get in a lot of work.....This should help him in the long run. But listening to the goal horn go off and fans in the stands celebrating, can be grating on any goalie.

 

[Brookbank]

He looked technically solid I thought. Especially in the shootout. He followed Mcdavid and stopped him.

Even on the last goal , he almost did the same as he did to Mcdavid.

When Demko comes back , we might have a trade chip in either him or Silovs.

 

[Zippgunn]

He looks solid and is very cheap. I would be confident in net with him and Silovs as a tandem.

 

[LordBacon]

OVERPAYMENT!

 

[PuckMunchkin]

OVERPAYMENT!

Really stole us one against Florida.

I think they need to stop the 50/50 split with Silovs struggling.

 

[LordBacon]

Really stole us one against Florida.

I think they need to stop the 50/50 split with Silovs struggling.

No doubt about it, Silovs athleticism covered a lot of weaknesses in the playoffs.
Dude is still a couple of years away from full time nhl duty.

If he figures it out he’ll be Demko 2.0

 

[SeawaterOnIce]

No doubt about it, Silovs athleticism covered a lot of weaknesses in the playoffs.
Dude is still a couple of years away from full time nhl duty.

If he figures it out he’ll be Demko 2.0

Trying to find the piece I read but it basically summed up the fact that a goaltender's chance of success at the NHL was dependent on posting a .915% of better at the AHL over a 40 (?) game sample size.

Silovs stats at the AHL aren't THAT bad but the eye test suggests that he has a tendency to melt down or allow shitty goals against the run of play. He definitely needs to figure it out down there.

 

[MS]

Trying to find the piece I read but it basically summed up the fact that a goaltender's chance of success at the NHL was dependent on posting a .915% of better at the AHL over a 40 (?) game sample size.

Silovs stats at the AHL aren't THAT bad but the eye test suggests that he has a tendency to melt down or allow shitty goals against the run of play. He definitely needs to figure it out down there.

The other thing with Silovs is that in both of the last two years he started off really poorly in the AHL and then heated up through the final half of the season. He looks like a guy who possibly just struggles to get into a groove at the start of a new year.

 

[mossey3535]

Watching Lankinen vs Silovs...Philosophically Torenius is a more relaxed goalie coach, he normally works with each goalie and doesn't try to change things overmuch unless things really aren't working. In ther past he's had to serve two masters in terms of the goalie themselves and their home clubs and what is implemented there.

Lankinen is just a more mature guy, his play style is mostly set. Silovs is still finding his identity and he's doing it from a less developed technical base.

You can see that a lot of Silov's decisions are rooted in the old Clark "go into the RVH automatically every entry" system, and since that's his established base (for what little there is) that's going to be a struggle in the NHL. It's caused lots of issues for Demko and Demko is a much better goalie.

We'll see if Lankinen can keep this up with increasing workload, he's never been a full time starter. Things just get harder the more you need to be consistent over long periods of time.

 

[Jyrki21]

This is the first time I’ve seen Lankinen play and he looks absolutely dialed in.

 

[TruGr1t]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1847805713172832608

True. Hire this man (Woodley, not Taj).

 

[Brookbank]

Sign him to a 3 year 1.3 million deal tonight

 

[JimmyJiveJones]

Ive never watched Lankinen play but i knew this would be a good signing cause there were times where id pick this guy up in my fantasy pool cause he would go on hot stretches.

And i was wrong about Silovs, i thought he would be alot better than this, like he can totally hold down the fort when Demko was gone.....

 

[kcunac]

What’s crazy is we can sign this guy to essentially league min in Sept and he’s way better than the goalies that many teams have, even teams with SC aspirations, like EDM, COL, VGK. Of course some of that is team defence and systems/goalie coach, but it’s also that Hill, Skinner, and Georgiev are inconsistent to say the least.

 

[HelloCookie]

There was a Lankinen interview on Finnish Helsingin Sanomat newspaper confirming he waited for a contract with a good fit instead of higher pay. It can be read between the lines that Canucks offered him less than a million in July already as he was in talks with the team, but he wanted to wait for longer in case a more lucrative offer came from another contending team. He also had legitimate and apparently more lucrative offers from handful of other teams but didn't accept those due to a lack of competitive fit.

I meant to translate the whole thing but there are factual errors such as Demko being canadian so I wont bother. Could have stayed as a backup in Nashville but wanted to challenge himself in the unknown for an opportunity to climb up the ladder, and he believes he is capable for that.

 

[LordBacon]

There was a Lankinen interview on Finnish Helsingin Sanomat newspaper confirming he waited for a contract with a good fit instead of higher pay. It can be read between the lines that Canucks offered him less than a million in July already as he was in talks with the team, but he wanted to wait for longer in case a more lucrative offer came from another contending team. He also had legitimate and apparently more lucrative offers from handful of other teams but didn't accept those due to a lack of competitive fit.

I meant to translate the whole thing but there are factual errors such as Demko being canadian so I wont bother. Could have stayed as a backup in Nashville but wanted to challenge himself in the unknown for an opportunity to climb up the ladder, and he believes he is capable for that.

Love the competitiveness, also this just proves that Vancouver has indeed successfully built an excellent culture that attracts quality players.

 

[Nucker101]

How lucky did we get that the NHL was stupid enough to leave this guy unsigned until September?

He's clearly at least 1 tier above the DeSmith pure backup level, he's closer to a Stolarz type.

 

[BenningHurtsMySoul]

How lucky did we get that the NHL was stupid enough to leave this guy unsigned until September?

He's clearly at least 1 tier above the DeSmith pure backup level, he's closer to a Stolarz type.

Ridiculously so. He should be making at least 3x what he is right now on a multi-year deal.

 

[TruGr1t]

How lucky did we get that the NHL was stupid enough to leave this guy unsigned until September?

He's clearly at least 1 tier above the DeSmith pure backup level, he's closer to a Stolarz type.

It was fortunate. Quite a few teams were carrying three goalies through camp and there really wasn’t a lot of openings around the league until after pre-season. Still weird a guy like DeSmith scores that type of deal and Lankinen is hanging around.

 

[iceburg]

After all is said an done Lankinen might be the best signing of the offseason for the team. I can actually see them signing him to a 3x$3M extension and using Silovs as a trade asset at the deadline as part of a deal to bring in a top 4 D-man.

 

[RandV]

It was fortunate. Quite a few teams were carrying three goalies through camp and there really wasn’t a lot of openings around the league until after pre-season. Still weird a guy like DeSmith scores that type of deal and Lankinen is hanging around.

From the post above it sounded like Lankinen could have had a DeSmith type deal on a non-playoff team. So seems like a case of right place at the right time for the Canucks, being a good goalie team, coming off the playoffs, and our started injured for an indeterminate time. For a goalie like Lankinen who wants to bet on himself, the only downside is the Canucks only had so much cap space but so far it looks like it should be win-win in the end. He'll take a small pay cut now for a bigger contract next season.

 

[F A N]

How lucky did we get that the NHL was stupid enough to leave this guy unsigned until September?

He's clearly at least 1 tier above the DeSmith pure backup level, he's closer to a Stolarz type.

From the post above it sounded like Lankinen could have had a DeSmith type deal on a non-playoff team. So seems like a case of right place at the right time for the Canucks, being a good goalie team, coming off the playoffs, and our started injured for an indeterminate time. For a goalie like Lankinen who wants to bet on himself, the only downside is the Canucks only had so much cap space but so far it looks like it should be win-win in the end. He'll take a small pay cut now for a bigger contract next season.

I recall reading that no team was willing to offer Lankinen more than $1M.

I think with Lankinen he's caught in a situation where he hasn't had a chance to prove that he can be a 1A/1B option (after leaving Chicago) and other teams don't see him as one. A guy like DeSmith has proven that he's not a starter or 1A/1B option so it's understandable for DeSmith to take the security. Lankinen, on the other hand, still has the potential of being more than a pure backup goalie by virtue of playing well but never having gotten the opportunity to play a starter's workload (even in relief).

I think at the end, it became clear to both parties that Demko wasn't coming back any time soon and this was the opportunity for Lankinen to handle a starter's work load on what is expected to be a playoff team and working with a coach he is familiar with. Allvin did a great job here of not giving up and Lankien chose a good spot to land IMO.

 

[HelloCookie]

I recall reading that no team was willing to offer Lankinen more than $1M.

According to the news article that wasn't the case. Quoting it by translating: NHL: Kevin Lankinen kertoo sopimusneuvotteluistaan

When Lankinen later signed the one year 875000 dollar deal, the general public understanding was that he had to settle for less than a million because there wasn't more available for him.

"That wasn't the case. I could have signed earlier for economically better deal elsewhere and net more money as a result, but I wanted to see this card through."

Now what's more money and how much over a million it was is understandably not disclosed, but I do agree that the Canucks were fortunate that the chips fell this way with him waiting for a good fit instead of best pay.