Demko to have hip surgery, miss rest of season for Canucks
Thatcher Demko will have hip surgery and miss the remainder of the season for the Vancouver Canucks.
“After consulting with our team doctors and outside specialists, Thatcher Demko will be shut down for the rest of the year,” Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin said Tuesday. “Thatcher will undergo surgery next week for an injury unrelated to the one that kept him out of action last season. Following his rehab, he will be ready for the start of training camp in September.”
Demko hasn’t played since allowing three goals on six shots before getting replaced by Kevin Lankinen to start the second period of a 5-0 loss at the Toronto Maple Leafs on Jan. 10. Allvin said 10 days later that the Canucks were “taking opinions from other resources around the world to see what needs to be done.”
The 30-year-old had missed a month (Nov. 11-Dec. 11) because of another lower-body injury.
“It’s tough to watch him go through what he’s gone through,” coach Adam Foote said. “He’s fought through it for a while now. I think it’s a good thing. His demeanor when I had a long conversation with him, he knows it’s the right thing for him to do to give us his best and clean up where it’s not affecting you.”
He’s 8-10-1 with a 2.91 goals-against average, .897 save percentage and one shutout in 20 games this season.
“When you watch his games this year, the first 10, he was where he is, the type of goalie he is, and then you can tell it just gradually got to him,” Foote said. “Where it jumps from compensation to a sore back to maybe a pulled groin you’re fighting through, and then it moves around. I think a clean-up, and I’m not going to get into the specifics because I don’t know the medical terms, but a clean-up in that area will take him out of that discomfort and I think will put him back in a place where he can play more than the games he’s been playing the last couple years as far as giving us more in the next years to come.”
Lankinen (7-16-4, 3.44 GAA, .884 save percentage in 28 games), named to Team Finland’s roster for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, likely will take over as starter, with Nikita Tolopilo and Jiri Patera as backup options.
