The Canucks explored trading for additional goalie depth after veteran Richard Bachman suffered a season-ending Achilles’ tear last month, GM Jim Benning acknowledged to Postmedia’s Patrick Johnston. However, they weren’t able to find a deal they liked at the time. They hoped that the acquisition of Mike McKenna earlier this week would give them a boost with AHL Utica but those plans were put on hold with Philadelphia claiming McKenna off waivers earlier today. All of a sudden, their depth between the pipes is extremely thin.
Vancouver has just one remaining healthy goalie on an NHL contract behind Jacob Markstrom and Thatcher Demko, their new tandem. That’s prospect Michael DiPietro who just came off a strong showing at the World Juniors but he isn’t eligible to play in the AHL this season (at least until the conclusion of his OHL campaign). While that makes him eligible to be an emergency recall to the Canucks should one of Markstrom or Demko go down with an injury, it doesn’t help their situation on the farm.
Utica has Belarusian netminder Ivan Kulbakov on a minor league contract and while the 22-year-old was supposed to spend most of the season at the ECHL level, he’s now thrust into the top job with the Comets. In a pinch, they could convert his deal to an NHL entry-level pact to give them another recall option but that would require a commitment beyond this season which they may not be willing to do given how he has fared thus far.
With that in mind, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Benning reprise his efforts to get another goaltender that’s on an NHL contract to supplement their depth and give them another recall option in case of injury. They could wait to see if they can reclaim and demote McKenna if the Flyers eventually make him available but with there being a few teams with goalie injuries at the moment, it has been difficult to get goalies through unclaimed this season. In the meantime, they’ll be using the minor league PTO route for the time being to give them a second AHL goalie but that’s not a feasible long-term strategy. Sooner than later, Vancouver will need to make a move of some sort to give themselves some depth between the pipes.
I hear Eddie Lack may be available ! :-D
Seriously, there are a number of goaltenders with NHL experience out there that would probably be available.
Steve Mason for one. His career numbers are pretty good and he’s probably been healthy and ready to go for quite awhile now. Currently unsigned as well (as far as I can tell).
Andrew Hammond (the “Hamburglar”) is another one that has pretty decent numbers and isn’t in the NHL right now, same for Kari Lehtonen.
There are a few more that have played in the NHL and are currently on various farm teams. Many of them are UFAs on July 1 2019 but that wouldn’t be an issue if you are just looking for (short term) depth on the farm at a reasonable cost.
Considering that the Canucks basically got nothing for Anders Nillson (unless you consider a 6th round pick as anything but a roll of the dice or future bargaining chip) and freed up a lot of cap space (about $1.2 mil for the rest of the season), they could look at getting someone like Al Montoya (cap hit of 1 mil per year) or Hammond or Steve Mason for the remainder of the season.
The biggest concern will be that Demko isn’t ready and has a horrible stretch of games, resulting in the Canucks sending him back to the farm.
Then they’d definitely want someone with some NHL experience that they could bring in to back up Markstrom.