Player Discussion Thatcher Demko

[Hit the post]

I don't know what is about the Canucks and their goalies, but they always seem unearth somebody in the draft.....Cory Schneider; a trade for Luongo; and of course Demko.

And I wouldn't sleep on DiPietro, Silovs or Koskenvuo......they'll marinate in the minors for awhile, but all have shown the capabilities of being NHL goalies one day.

And as other posters have pointed out, some NHL teams can't find a goalie in the draft to save their lives....and end up overpaying for some veteran guy who's plateaued or is even in decline.

It's too bad the Canucks weren't as good at finding d-men as they seem to be with goalies,

Ron Delorme found an undrafted goalie prospect Eddie Lack. Showed some promise (got in a number of games for us at the NHL level) before injuries & the Canes goaltending coach eff'd him up.

 

[MarkMM]

we were owed by the hockey gods after garth snow, keenan refusing to play irbe, sean burke before he was fixed, kevin weekes, felix potvin when he sucked, crawford refusing to play all three of essensa, hedberg, and noronen, cloutier, alex auld, peter skudra, martin brochu, and the omelette.

There was a time when Vancouver was known as a goalie graveyard...

 

[mathonwy]

There was a time when Vancouver was known as a goalie graveyard...

Now it’s the new-acquisition graveyard.

Spin the wheel on which new acquisition gets devalued and leaves for nothing.

 

[Hit the post]

There was a time when Vancouver was known as a goalie graveyard...

Brian Burke buried alot of bodies in that graveyard.

 

[tradervik]

Brian Burke buried alot of bodies in that graveyard.

Of all the Canucks "what if " scenarios, the only one that really bothers me is the report that Burke could have acquired Kiprusoff from the Sharks if he'd been willing to cough up a 2nd round pick. It would have been too late to prevent the infamous Lidstrom goal, but it would have made a tremendous difference against Calgary the following year, when the Flames went all the way to the cup finals after squeaking out a 7 game series against Vancouver in the first round.

Back to Demko, whatever technical issues he may still have the guy is extremely competitive and has an incredible work ethic. Clark just has to point him in the right direction.

 

[VanJack]

Demko has been the Canucks MVP through 10 games, and it isn't even a matter of much debate.

But you watch him standing on his head night after night to cover for egregious breakdowns in front of him, you seriously wonder how long he can keep it up? I mean the guy is facing 8-10 high danger chances in every game, including the requisite number of breakaways every night.

The only guy who doesn't seem too alarmed about all this is Green. His view seems to be that the goalie's paid to stop the puck, so just stop it. But if Demko were to ever go down with an injury, the Canuck season would be down the toilet bowl shortly thereafter.

And it won't be too long before opposing players start taking runs at him in the crease, particularly if they're frustrated trying to score.

 

[Zippgunn]

... if Demko were to ever go down with an injury, the Canuck season would be down the toilet bowl shortly thereafter.

So in your opinion Halak is terrible based on one game?

 

[VanJack]

So in your opinion Halak is terrible based on one game?

He'd be no better than Holtby....and how did that work our for the Canucks last year?

 

[EpochLink]

The only player atm who’s giving us a chance to win.

 

[kanucks25]

So in your opinion Halak is terrible based on one game?

Halak has been fine. But at this point there are only a handful of goalies in the league that could replace what Demko is giving us, and obviously we won't have access to any of them if he does go down.

That said, most teams would take a big hit if their starter went down, so we're not special in that sense.

But we do rely heavily on Demko to keep us in games. It hasn't been pretty so far, but it'd be downright ugly without him.

 

[RobertKron]

So in your opinion Halak is terrible based on one game?

So in your opinion Halak is equivalent to Demko based on one game?

 

[Zippgunn]

He'd be no better than Holtby....and how did that work our for the Canucks last year?

Terrible because Holtby rarely got a winnable start. He seems to be doing much better now in Dallas doncha think?

 

[PavelBure10]

The heartbeat of the Canucks. No Demko, the Canucks flatline.

 

[sting101]

Brian Burke buried alot of bodies in that graveyard.

Not before he drove them to the airport

That's Felix Potvin in the back

 

[CherryToke]

 

[M2Beezy]

Man I love this goalie

 

[VanJack]

Rutherford in his press conference stated that the Canucks are already fortunate to have a 'franchise goaltender'. Is Demko a 'franchise goaltender' in your mind, or just on an unreal hot streak?

 

[Breakers]

He's paid like an average goaltender and is performing above that Metric

He's got the 15th highest cap hit in the league
-GSAA/60 = 7th in the league amongst qualifying goaltenders
-(Point Share) GPS = 3rd in the league
-Quality Starts = 6th in the league

Most of Demko's numbers get sunk of the PK, his even strength numbers are very good, and in some cases better than Markstrom
I'd say he is in the 7-10 rank among goaltenders

so I don't know what people classify as a franchise Goalie
I personally think he is.

 

[Knight53]

He’s pretty easily a Franchise goaltender.

 

[Red]

The best contract Benning gave out, legitimately now a bargain

 

[Breakers]

probably our only player in legit conversation for an award at the end of the year.

 

[lawrence]

The best contract Benning gave out, legitimately now a bargain

Hughes contract looks good compared to suzukies and Brady tkachuks. Sure as hell much better than Darnell nurse.

 

[VanJack]

The Canucks are still no better than 'even money' to make the playoffs in the Western Conference.....but the bottom line is that Demko is giving this team a chance to win every night. He's the best goaltender in the conference right now, and might be top two or three in entire NHL.

And goaltending will carry you a long way towards the promised land. That's what made the early-season meltdown so frustrating. Demko was playing out of his mind, and they were still losing under Green. It would be shame that early season morass cost them their season.

 

[Breakers]

Servalli reporting that Demko was on team USA for the Olympics.

 

[mossey3535]

Last two games showed a lot of his warts. Despite how good he was for us, the Boudreau streak had only three really quality teams - Bruins, Jets, Canes. And we were 1-1 against the Kings.

In some ways he is getting addicted to the amazing stops and high shot volumes (lesser now with Boudreau) . This is actually easy to do. Also easy to overlook the small flaws which are eating into his development and IMO consistency. When you make the 10-alarm saves every night it's easy to make excuses for a softie or two. But we see versus these better teams that they score more on relatively little shot volume. That's because they are skilled and fast enough to exploit his weaknesses. As Demko evolves towards a truly elite goalie, these are the humps he will have to get over.

Sad to say again but his tendencies to lean to his posts, to over-use post-integration, and his relative inability to fight through screens are still there and haven't changed.

His skating may have improved marginally, but I don't think he will get too much better than he is now which is above average. Excellent considering his size but IMO not on an objective level.

His inability to keep his feet is exacerbated by his tendency to overslide and the previous post issues I talked about earlier.

He hasn't had as many issues with Carolina that I recall so I'm interested to watch this next game. I'm assuming Halak gets the Caps.