There are many who believe that Kevin Lankinen’s career as a Vancouver Canuck will be limited to just the 2024/25 season.
This is, of course, through no fault of Lankinen’s own, but it’s not a bad bet. The 29-year-old goaltender signed a one-year deal with the Canucks to help cover Thatcher Demko’s injury absence, and has done that and then some. Lankinen’s numbers are some of the best in the league this year, and he’s set to be a free agent again as of this coming summer.
The predictions aren’t hard to figure out from here. With Demko still ensconced in Vancouver, Lankinen will likely seek both a starting role and a salary to match on the UFA market this summer. Honestly, that’s barely a “prediction” and more of a near-certainty. It would be financially irresponsible for Lankinen not to go looking for a starter’s job off the strength of his Vancouver performance.
But actually finding that starter’s job might be another matter altogether.
If this were a player at literally any other position, it wouldn’t be so complicated. You have a good year as a pending UFA, you tend to sign a nice contract thereafter. At least one of the 32 teams is typically going to be willing to pay – or overpay – on the hopes of you repeating that performance with them. But that’s less true for goalies, who have just 64 jobs league-wide to compete for, or just 32 if we’re exclusively talking starter gigs.
This article was largely inspired by the post-roster freeze headline that the Colorado Avalanche had signed the recently acquired goalie MacKenzie Blackwood to a five-year, $26.25 million extension.
The Avalanche, always seemingly one good goalie short of contention, were one of the primary teams suggested as a potential new home for Lankinen. This Blackwood extension would appear to take them out of the running. Which then raises the question of how many teams are still realistically in the running, and how many will remain so all the way until July 1, 2025.
The reality is that most of the starting goalie jobs in the NHL are already spoken for well into the 2025/26 season.
The Canucks, for example, have Demko signed until at least the end of that year. He’s one of many. The list of starting goalies signed through 2025/26 (at least), going in rough descending order by salary, includes Igor Shesterkin (New York Rangers), Sergei Bobrovsky (Florida), Andrei Vasilevskiy (Tampa), Connor Hellebuyck (Winnipeg), Ilya Sorokin (New York Islanders), Jeremy Swayman (Boston), Jake Oettinger (Dallas), Linus Ullmark (Ottawa), Juuse Saros (Nashville), John Gibson (Anaheim), Jacob Markstrom (New Jersey), Jordan Binnington (St. Louis), Elvis Merzlikins (Columbus, questionable status), Tristan Jarry (Pittsburgh, questionable status), Darcy Kuemper (LA, questionable status), Blackwood (Colorado), Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (Buffalo), Joey Daccord (Seattle), Joseph Woll (Toronto), Sam Montembeault (Montreal), Filip Gustavsson (Minnesota), and Dustin Wolf (Calgary).
Including Vancouver and Demko, that’s already more than two-thirds of the league covered at 23 teams. And that’s just the contracts that have already been signed.
There are a number of teams that can be effectively added to the list due to having starters that they plan to re-sign before exploring the market. This list includes the Vegas Golden Knights with Adin Hill, the Washington Capitals with both Logan Thompson and Charlie Lindgren, and probably the Utah Hockey Club with Karel Vejmelka.
There are also those teams that might have a starter in the fold already that is signed through 2025/26, albeit of indeterminate quality or security. This list includes the Carolina Hurricanes and Pyotr Kochetkov, the Chicago Blackhawks and Petr Mrazek, and perhaps San Jose, who might turn the reins over to Yaroslav Askarov sooner rather than later.
That’s 26 of 32 NHL teams listed in the ‘definitely’ to ‘probably not looking for a new starting goaltender’ categories, and three more in the ‘maybe’ column.
So who does that even leave?
There are the Philadelphia Flyers, who don’t have a de facto starter even now, but are somewhat dedicated to a group of young goalies led by Samuel Ersson. One could imagine them being in the market for at least a veteran to platoon.
There are the Detroit Red Wings, who have veteran Cam Talbot signed through next season, but not at a bank-breaking rate, and some youngsters trying to push through. They might throw a contract at Lankinen, but not a massive one.
And then there are the Edmonton Oilers, who need a quality goalie, and bad. They’ve got Stuart Skinner under contract, but only at $2.6 million, so they could easily offer a bigger deal to a better netminder. Call them the most obvious landing spot for Lankinen, for now.
Other teams could hit this list. Someone like Los Angeles or Columbus may decide they need a better starter, and see Lankinen as that better starter. Even then, however, they’d have to navigate the tricky waters of getting rid of their current starter (and their salary) before they could offer something enticing to a UFA.
Other teams with younger starters might seek to sign Lankinen as a supplement, but then that hinders the amount of salary they can realistically offer him.
Speaking of UFAs, it’s not as though Lankinen will be the only goalie on the market, either. He’s set to be the best, but he’ll still be competing with veterans like Jake Allen and Frederik Andersen, and any of that aforementioned group of Hill, Vejmelka, Lindgren, or Thompson who might make it that far.
Put it all together and the conclusion one arrives at is this: Kevin Lankinen may have earned an ongoing starter’s job and the term and salary that go with it with his performance for the Canucks in 2024/25, but that doesn’t mean he will get what he deserves. The goalie market is a harsh and limited one.
Thus, if Lankinen looks out upon the 2025 Free Agent Frenzy and does not see an obvious lane to a starting job, he’ll naturally have to consider other, non-starting options. And if that’s the case, then remaining in Vancouver as backup to the notoriously injury-prone Demko suddenly starts to sound like a fine choice, after all. No doubt that would involve a pay increase, but maybe not as large of one as Lankinen has actually earned.
So, perhaps it’s not time to give up on hopes of Lankinen remaining a Canuck past July 1, 2025. The state of goaltending around the league might just conspire to keep him in Vancouver a little while longer.