This is the Vancouver Canucks way.
The day after the National Hockey League team assigned third-string goalie Mike DiPietro to the American Hockey League, starter Thatcher Demko was injured Monday in the morning skate in Ottawa.
With the Canucks surprisingly back in the playoff race and facing 15 games in 24 days, starting tonight against the Senators, Braden Holtby is now essentially working the Vancouver crease without a safety net. His backup tonight – and for the rest of this week if Demko remains out – is 20-year-old junior hockey grad Arturs Silovs, who played one game this season while on loan to the Manitoba Moose.
The Hockey Gods must be bored again. Mike DiPietro, who hasn’t played in 13 months, arrived for his AHL assignment in Utica on Sunday and is now subject to a one-week border quarantine if Canucks need him back. #DemkoInjury
— Iain MacIntyre (@imacSportsnet) April 26, 2021
You can’t convince anyone who has followed the Canucks for much of their five decades that rotten luck isn’t as much a part of their history as an 0-3 record in Stanley Cup Finals.
Two days ago, the Canucks had four goalies available to them. Now they have two.
“Demmer is not available tonight,” coach Travis Green told reporters this morning. “Lower-body injury, day-to-day.”
DiPietro has toiled without complaint as Vancouver’s third goalie this season, spending all of it on the taxi squad until the Canucks sent him Sunday to the Utica Comets in order to get their top netminding prospect playing time.
DiPietro, 21, hasn’t played since March 11, 2020, when he started the last of his 36 games for Utica in his rookie season as a professional.
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Wary of pandemic border issues restricting player movement this season, the Canucks arranged for Silovs, a sixth-round 2019 draft pick from Latvia, to be loaned to the Moose. But the Winnipeg Jets’ farm team gave Silovs only one start, a 2-1 loss to Laval on Feb. 27 in which the goalie stopped 23 of 25 shots and was named the game’s third star, and the Canucks recalled him two weeks ago during the team’s COVID-19 crisis.
Silovs spent last season in the Ontario Hockey League with the Barrie Colts but has played professional hockey in Latvia, including six games last fall while on loan from the Canucks.
With DiPietro subject to a one-week border quarantine if the Canucks bring him back from Utica, it appears Silovs will remain Holtby’s backup in the short-term if Demko remains out.
As this is written, the Canucks have not recalled DiPietro, believing Demko will be out only a short time.
The Canucks have back-to-back games Wednesday and Thursday in Ottawa and Toronto.
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Holtby should be able to handle the workload this week, at least. The former Vezina Trophy winner was a starter the last eight seasons in Washington before signing with the Canucks and losing the No. 1 job to Demko.
But Holtby has been the Canucks’ best player since their COVID-19 shutdown ended, starting three of the four games while stopping 100 of 107 shots and winning three times.
The Canucks will have to scramble to acquire/borrow/steal another goalie if something happens to Holtby or Silovs this week before Demko recovers from his undisclosed injury. But even then, NHL quarantine requirements regarding travel and new players entering a team’s “bubble” make it nearly impossible for Vancouver to get help.
Surely, the Hockey gods aren’t that cruel?
No wonder the Canucks are expected to move their minor-league team back west, possibly to British Columbia, after this season by exercising an out-clause in their affiliation agreement with Utica.
“We’ve got a lot of games in a short amount of nights,” Green said. “We’re going to need both goalies (Holtby and Demko) to be on top of their game. Holts has been very solid the three starts here, looking like he’s right on top of his game, as well.”
The Canucks won’t get any sympathy from the Senators or, well, anyone else in the NHL.
Ottawa lost two goalies to injury in Saturday’s 4-2 loss in Vancouver: starter Matt Murray in the second period and backup Anton Forsberg in the pre-game warmup. Taxi-squad goalie Marcus Hogberg finished the game for Ottawa.
But the Senators, like all but two Canadian teams, have the benefit of a nearby AHL affiliate and a pool of players available to them on this side of the Canada-U.S. border.
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