NEW YORK – Neighbours and off-season training partners in Oulu, Finland, Aatu Raty said he’s not sure he scored even one goal this summer on Leevi Merilainen.
“Live in the same area, practise together, train at the same gym, do everything,” Raty said Sunday. “I feel like I didn't score on him the whole summer. I think he was just really focused on his work and getting better every day. He just worked his ass off. I mean, he made some saves.”
The Vancouver Canucks could use some of those.
With the worst defensive record in the National Hockey League, and floundering amid a losing streak that has seen them outscored 17-5 in the first half of their six-game eastern road trip, Vancouver’s goaltending has become an early-season flashpoint.
Stalked all summer by the Canucks and acquired on waivers from the Ottawa Senators four days before the regular season, Merilainen has played exceptionally well so far. Veteran Kevin Lankinen, uh, has not.
After the 31-year-old allowed six goals on 25 shots in Vancouver’s 6-2 loss Sunday against the New York Rangers, Lankinen’s save rate of .786 ranks 36th among 37 NHL goalies who have appeared in at least three games so far. Merilainen is eighth at .929.
These percentages are from minuscule sample sizes and subject to dramatic up- or downticks this early in the season.
But with a game Tuesday against the New York Islanders, the Canucks appear to have a much better chance right now to be competitive with Merilainen, who has started only two of Vancouver’s seven games but was also sharp in a pair of extended relief appearances for the struggling Lankinen.
The team did not practise Monday.
As we’ve learned, Canucks coach Manny Malhotra will give us his credit card number and Instagram password before tipping off reporters about his starting goalie – or anything else regarding his lineup.
But Malhotra has been impressed with how well the 22-year-old Merilainen has transitioned to the Canucks.
“I like the confidence that he shows as a young guy,” Malhotra told Sportsnet on Sunday. “He's very much a goalie in terms of personality. Like, he doesn't give you much. He's an introverted guy (but) never-a-bad-day kind of guy. He just kind of goes about his business. Doesn't get too excited about things, doesn't get down about things. But in his game, I've seen just a lot of really poised play, as well as some massive saves at key times.”
Apart from any short-term gains for the Canucks by playing Merilainen, it’s important to remember that the 2020 third-round pick is also an important development project for the rebuilding team.
After Ryan Johnson became general manager last May, the Canucks set Merilainen as an acquisition target and were elated that the Senators, who desperately played their best goalie prospect into the ground with 11 straight NHL starts last winter amid a crease crisis, exposed him on waivers after signing Samuel Ersson in July to back up Linus Ullmark.
“You want to see guys that are hungry and grateful for opportunities, and he embodies that,” Malhotra said of Merilainen. “He came in with a really open mind, no expectations on his part in terms of how many games he would play or when he would start. But when he's been given the start, he’s super grateful for it. He just goes in and does his thing.”
With No. 1 goalie Thatcher Demko still out indefinitely as he recovers from major surgery on his hips, what the Canucks can offer Merilainen is a controlled opportunity and patience.
“That helps for sure,” the athletic, six-foot-three goalie said. “Like, just knowing you can be here, play games and compete, it's an opportunity to show myself. Yeah, it's nicer knowing that you're not going up and down (to the minors) all the time.”
Merilainen made the Senators at the start of last season but was sent to the American Hockey League twice in the opening month to get games. As Ottawa’s backup, he played seven times in seven weeks before Christmas but suddenly became the starter when Ullmark took a mental-health leave of absence.
Only twice in his 11 straight starts did Merilainen stop 90 per cent of the shots he faced – he has done it in all four appearances for the Canucks – and on Jan. 20, after the Senators had signed James Reimer in mid-season, the Finn was returned to the AHL for good.
All of this might help explain how Merilainen posted an .860 save rate in 20 NHL games last season after impressively developing his game over the previous four years.
“There was, like, a lot of uncertainty for sure,” the goalie said. “First of all, not knowing if you will make the team. And then when you think you've made it, you go up and down (to the minors) a couple of times. You don’t play a lot (and) I've always played a lot. Even if I wasn't on the best team, I've always played a lot. And then going from not playing much at all, going up and down, and then all of a sudden playing in the NHL. . . 11 games in a row, and they didn't go as well as I wanted to. So, yeah, it was a tough year. But you’ve got to learn from those. Everybody's going to have better years and worse years. You’ve just got to get through them and learn from them.”
A boyhood friend of Merilainen since they met each other at “sports school” in Grade 7, Raty said the goalie was a late-bloomer.
“He just stuck with it,” the Canuck centre said. “He never quit. I'm sure it was a mental battle, you know, not being the best goalie in your city and not being in the national team and stuff like that. But he never quit, and obviously worked really hard to get that good. That’s one thing I remember: he always stuck with it, always kept working and got rewarded.
“Leevi, like, he got really good at a later age. . . like 16, 17, 18 years old. He just got really good kind of all of a sudden.”
“He's right,” Merilainen said. “Like pretty much all my life, I've been, what do you call it. . . like, always trying to work my way up, always trying to make the team. Sometimes I've had to go to a lower level, even in Finland, to get some games in. So, yeah, that's true. But I'm happy the way it's gone, and I wouldn't change anything. It's been a learning experience to just never give up and keep going no matter what. And enjoy what you're doing (because) you never know.”
