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Player Discussion Thatcher Demko

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It might seem like sacrilege to suggest it, but teams are winning the Stanley Cup these days with 'average' goaltending. For example, the Leafs seem to think they can win with a combo of Matt Martin and Ilya Samsonov.

If somebody came along with a home-run offer of a 'Grade A' prospects and picks for Demko, you'd have to consider it wouldn't you?

Martin and maybe Delia could hold down the fort in the NHL; with Silovs and Koskenuvo in the pipeline. Meantime, the Canucks would gain close to $5m in cap relief.
 
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VanJack said:
It might seem like sacrilege to suggest it, but teams are winning the Stanley Cup these days with 'average' goaltending. For example, the Leafs seem to think they can win with a combo of Matt Martin and Ilya Samsonov.

If somebody came along with a home-run offer of a 'Grade A' prospects and picks for Demko, you'd have to consider it wouldn't you?

Martin and maybe Delia could hold down the fort in the NHL; with Silovs and Koskenuvo in the pipeline. Meantime, the Canucks would gain close to $5m in cap relief.
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Demko is being wasted on this team and his value is plummeting with every game. If you don't have a half decent defense and structure it doesn't matter who is in the net. Look at a team like Vegas with their two AHL goalies looking like Vezina trophy candidates.
 
have been saying for a couple years that we should trade demko for a bluechip young defenseman, but now is absolutely not the time to be moving him

let him regain form and then explore a trade in the offseason. if we're lucky there will be a situation like colorado getting dummied in a playoff series due to weak goaltending and needing to make a move... which leads to a swap for byram.

is luke hughes any good? njd would be scary with a proven, superstar starter and there's precedent for them to trade for our 27 year old stud former boston college goalie....
 
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1989 — kirk mclean establishes himself as a bona fide starter in the league, finishes third for the vezina (behind patrick roy and mike vernon, who backstopped the #2 and #1 teams in the league to eventually face each other in the finals), first canucks goalie to have a winning season in five years (since john garrett, lol), pushed the eventual cup winners to game 7 OT before otto kicked it in… had to play on a team with jim benning on it

1990 — overplayed to within an inch of his life, led the league in games, minutes, shots, goals against, losses, team finished second last in the league

1991 — we wonder if 1989 mclean was just a mirage as he loses his starting role to rookie troy gamble

1992 — with the defence upgraded from butcher, reinhart, lidster, nordmark, old snepsts, and benning to lumme, diduck, babych, lidster, murzyn, and dirk, mclean has an MVP year, leading the franchise to its best season ever (fourth in the league), finishes second to peak roy for the vezina, fourth in hart trophy voting, tied for league lead in wins, and the rest is history

just sayin’
 
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If someone told me Demko would be the biggest reason for where we are right now I wouldn’t believe.

No position is as volatile as the goalie position
 
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He is single handedly tanking the season.

There's a reason wins/losses are also a goalie stat. Winning changes so much, you don't see Vegas fans talking about how 2 guys got out muscled by 170# EP, they aren't calling their D soft for not clearing Kuzmenko from the crease, or pulling their hair out over allowing JT and Bo to have consecutive 2 on 1's on the same shift.

Making a couple routine saves, and getting the W, leads to more W's, which leads to everyone looking, feeling and in turn, playing better. This is a momentum based sport. It's not 'masking' anything to have competent goaltending, the roster holes have been fully known, and planned to be addressed when appropriate moves were made available. Those plans are meaningless when your goalie takes you out of the running before Christmas break.

Even a 3GAA would have them right in the race, it's shocking how bad Demko's been.
 
canuckking1 said:
If someone told me Demko would be the biggest reason for where we are right now I wouldn’t believe.

No position is as volatile as the goalie position
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Agreed...He doesnt even have to be exceptional..just better than average.

As Demko goes, so go the Vancouver Canucks...They've got a lot invested with this player, and he just doesnt have it this season...Unfortunate, but there you are.

Luongo used to be a bit of a slow starter, but he generally would have his game tidied up by November..Here we are going into December with Demko and Martin, and what was a strength on the team last season, is now solidly mediocre.

 
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VanJack said:
It might seem like sacrilege to suggest it, but teams are winning the Stanley Cup these days with 'average' goaltending. For example, the Leafs seem to think they can win with a combo of Matt Martin and Ilya Samsonov.

If somebody came along with a home-run offer of a 'Grade A' prospects and picks for Demko, you'd have to consider it wouldn't you?

Martin and maybe Delia could hold down the fort in the NHL; with Silovs and Koskenuvo in the pipeline. Meantime, the Canucks would gain close to $5m in cap relief.
Click to expand...
Yeah you would. Not because I don't believe that Demko is (still) an upper-tier starter, But because there is a 0% chance this team can be even remotely close to a contender during the rest of Thatcher's contract.

And to be clear, I place like ~10% of the blame for this season on Demko. The defensive environment is horrible. It is much worse than xG or GSAx can indicate. The defending against Vegas was so passive, it looked worse than the Div 7 league men's hockey I play in. There was a Vegas sequence where they had like three cross-seam passes in the span of 13 seconds. It's pathetic. You can't adapt to that as a goalie. When every time the opposition has the puck, you know in the back of your mind you can't just focus on the shooter because there is a 75% chance they're going to go cross-ice on you. And then it happens. Again and again.

Petey sees the writing on the wall for his garbage dump franchise. The Canucks will be entering a full rebuild after completely wasting a decade. In total, probably 15 years flushed down the toilet, accomplishing nothing.
 
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PuckMunchkin said:
Just curious.

How did the people down on Demko feel he played vs the Sharks?
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Definitely some progress. Most of the goals on him I felt were actually flukes, whereas many this year he could have at least given himself a higher probability of saving it had he been on his game.

Last goal was him being down early again in a low danger situation, so I chalk that up to things in his game that need to be worked on still.

Good game to try to turn things around, high volume and not too many lateral plays given up in front of him
 
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mossey3535 said:
Definitely some progress. Most of the goals on him I felt were actually flukes, whereas many this year he could have at least given himself a higher probability of saving it had he been on his game.

Last goal was him being down early again in a low danger situation, so I chalk that up to things in his game that need to be worked on still.

Good game to try to turn things around, high volume and not too many lateral plays given up in front of him
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Pretty much how I saw it too.
 
Diagnosing Thatcher Demko: Why his Vancouver Canucks teammates are partially to blame

Analysis by Mike Mckenna. I disagree with some parts - IMO his tracking has been pretty bad and I don't think he is in control or seeing the puck ahead of his lateral movement. He also brings up a good point about his hips sinking a lot which I didn't notice but I think he's always been a bit like this. But he is seeing the same thing with being down too early for example.
 
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mossey3535 said:
Diagnosing Thatcher Demko: Why his Vancouver Canucks teammates are partially to blame

Analysis by Mike Mckenna. I disagree with some parts - IMO his tracking has been pretty bad and I don't think he is in control or seeing the puck ahead of his lateral movement. He also brings up a good point about his hips sinking a lot which I didn't notice but I think he's always been a bit like this. But he is seeing the same thing with being down too early for example.
Click to expand...

Have experienced gaslighting here recently. Feels good to have someone more or less in line with my thoughts.
 
I have been posting for 2 months that Demko's problem was his hips, his right hip to precise.

Check out some of my other posts Explained why I figured it was his right hip.
And that he would take pain killers to play and as the pain killers wore off his game deteriorated, third periods.
 
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Looks like Demko will be gone for awhile......funny how perceptions change.....if this kind of injury had occurred in the off-season or the exhibition schedule, fans would be prepared to write off the season. Since he was the biggest single reason the team went 32-15 down the stretch last season.

But after 23 games this year, it's 'whatever'. This team probably wasn't going to do anything anyway, even Demko recovered his form and stood on his head. And now that isn't likely to happen this year.
 
canuckking1 said:
If someone told me Demko would be the biggest reason for where we are right now I wouldn’t believe.

No position is as volatile as the goalie position
Click to expand...

He’s the reason why we are this bad. I don’t know why this is happening. I heard he had some surgery in the off season ?

If Martin goes down whois in net for us? We are literally team talkathon.
 
About the only hope this team had of clawing its way back into playoff contention, was a fully healthy Demko recovering from his shaky start and showing the form he did down the stretch last season.

Now it looks like there's no possibility of that happening. Given this team's dismal PK, along with the Grade A chances and defensive zone time they surrenders, their season is done without Vezina-quality goaltending. And that won't come from the tandem of Martin and Delia. That's just the way it is.

So cue up the Horvat trade speculation and the TDL. Pretty soon that's all that will be left for this season.
 
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