Kevin Lankinen enters 2026-27 with a pretty simple assignment: climb back up.
That’s the reality after a rough 2025-26 season in Vancouver, one that saw the 29-year-old Finn finish 11-27-5, drop below a .900 save percentage for the first time since 2021-22, and start six fewer games than he did in his first year with the Canucks. The numbers took a sharp turn after he signed his five-year extension with the club in 2025, a deal that was supposed to cement him as the team’s long-term starter. Instead, Vancouver later handed Thatcher Demko a new three-year contract near the end of the 2024-25 season, leaving the Canucks in the unusual spot of having the 1B with more term than the 1A.
Last season, though, the goalie picture got complicated fast. Demko ran into another stretch of injury trouble, Nikita Tolopilo was still developing, and the burden of taking on most of the starts landed back on Lankinen’s shoulders. Even in a difficult year, he still earned the Canucks’ nomination for the Masterton Trophy from the Vancouver chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association.
At his best, Lankinen is a very solid goalie. The issue for Vancouver is that he doesn’t really fit the profile of the goalie this team has often needed - the kind who steals games night after night the way Demko can. But given the injury histories around him, Lankinen may still end up playing plenty anyway.
So what does success look like? It starts with something pretty modest: play 35 or more games and push the save percentage back over .900.
That’s the kind of line that would make sense for a goalie in his role. Ideally, Demko handles most of the workload and Lankinen gets the lighter share for the first time in his Canucks run. He’s done well before with the extra rest that comes from not carrying a full starter’s load, and a slightly smaller workload would give his numbers a better chance to bounce back.
A .900 save percentage might not sound flashy, but it still matters. Hitting .902 again, which he posted in his first season in Vancouver, would be a solid step. Going beyond that would be even better.
The wins column would tell its own story, too. Lankinen’s 11 victories in 47 games last season actually led all Canucks goalies. That says plenty about how things went around him.
And that’s the catch here: he needs the team in front of him to do more. The Canucks roster projected for 2026-27 doesn’t sound like it’s set up to be dramatically better than last season’s group. If Lankinen somehow finds nine more wins, that would be a huge leap - and a result that would be hard to ignore.
The important part is that he was not the reason Vancouver spent so much time losing last year. An .876 save percentage on a last-place team leaves plenty of room for improvement, and the only real thing that could drag him down further is another injury setback.
In that sense, this is a much freer spot than the one he just came through. He’s already seen the bottom.
Now the job is to work his way out of it, even if the Canucks still make that climb heavier than it should be. A more experienced blue line should help, and if he stays healthy, there’s a good chance his season looks a lot better than the last one did.
In Other News...
Canucks Rebuild Could Hinge On A Surprise Prospect Breakthrough
The Canucks have spent enough time in the draft looking for value beyond the headliners to know how much a rebuild can be shaped by the back half of a class. Kirill Kudryavtsev, Dmitry Ivchenko, Lucian Bernat and Anthony Romani all sit in that mid-to-late-round window where teams are usually hoping for one useful NHL player and maybe a little more if development breaks right. For Vancouver, those kinds of picks matter because they can quietly change the depth chart and help ease pressure on the bigger-name pieces the franchise is counting on.
What makes this stretch of draft classes interesting is that the Canucks do not necessarily need a miracle, just one prospect who outperforms his slot and forces the organization to rethink his ceiling. That is the sort of breakthrough other teams have used to accelerate a rebuild, and it is why these players are worth watching even if they are not the names grabbing the most attention right now. If one of them turns into a real contributor, the entire evaluation of Vancouvers recent drafting could look a lot different. [Read more 🡒]
Canucks Face A Tough Crease Decision With Tolopilo This Camp
Nikita Tolopilos first real test of the summer arrives with a familiar kind of pressure for a young goalie in Vancouver: prove he belongs, or make himself useful to someone else. After splitting the 2025-26 season between the AHL and NHL and posting inconsistent numbers in both stops, Tolopilo heads into camp with a chance to push for a backup or tandem role behind Thatcher Demko and Kevin Lankinen as the Canucks sort out their crease picture for 2026-27.
What makes the situation tricky is that this is not just about one goaltenders development, but how the club wants to shape its rebuild and its depth chart at a position where patience usually runs thin. Tolopilos future with the team will be tied to how he looks in training camp and the preseason, and Vancouver has to decide whether keeping him in the mix makes sense or whether another path better fits the long view. [Read more 🡒]
Canucks Could Add Camp Pressure Where Young Hopefuls Feel It Most
The Canucks have at least one more lever to pull as training camp approaches, and it is a familiar one: bringing in players on professional tryout deals to make the room a little tighter. Vancouver has used PTOs before, and the appeal this time is easy to see, with camp spots up for grabs and a need to keep pressure on young hopefuls while also looking for some extra depth on defense.
Even if the club decides not to hand out any more contracts to its remaining unrestricted free agents, there is still a sense that a PTO or two could make sense. Veterans such as Adam Boqvist, Ben Hutton, Jacob Moverare, Patrik Laine and Pavol Regenda have been floated as possible fits, but nothing has been signed yet, leaving the Canucks with a few different paths as they sort through the bottom of the roster. [Read more 🡒]