2025-26 Canucks milestone watch: Thatcher Demko looking to cement his spot in franchise’s big three in goal
Photo credit: © Bob Frid-Imagn Images
Jul 12, 2025, 19:00 UTC
With a new three-year contract extension in hand, Thatcher Demko can now set his sights on – among other things – attaining lofty spots in the Vancouver Canucks record book.
While his career has been derailed several times by serious injuries, the 2014 second-rounder has still managed to work his way up the ranks in nearly every franchise goaltending category. It’s just taken Demko a little longer than expected to get there.
The 29-year-old San Diego native starts next season tied with Richard Brodeur for third in all-time franchise regular season victories with 126. With each win he achieves next season, Demko will move closer to the only names ahead of him on the list: Kirk McLean (211) and Roberto Luongo (252).
Demko is fourth in career appearances with 242. Even if he is fully healthy and commands a full workload, he still has plenty of ground to cover to reach Brodeur, who sits third with 377.
One area Demko has a legitimate shot of making up ground next season is in career shutouts. He has posted nine in his time in the NHL. That leaves him in a share of sixth on the Canucks all-time list along with Cory Schneider. Demko’s next shutout will move him into a tie for fifth with Ryan Miller. With two shutouts, Demko will match Gary Smith with 11 over their careers. At that point, only Dan Cloutier (14), McLean (20) and Luongo (38) will remain ahead of him.
Where Demko absolutely needs to start his ascension through the Canucks ranks is in the playoffs. It is long overdue. He has four career starts, five career appearances and three career wins in the postseason. And with four of his five post-season appearances coming in the NHL’s summer bubble of 2020, Demko has played exactly one postseason game with fans in the stands. To put things in perspective, Arturs Silovs – with a pair of surprise rounds of Stanley Cup experience a year ago – has twice as many playoff appearances and two more playoff wins than Demko.
As it is, Demko sits 10th among all Canucks goalies in postseason games played. The wild part about that is if he could appear in two rounds next spring, he could vault into fourth on the list. Corey Hirsch (6), Gary Bromley (7), Cory Schneider and Silovs (10 apiece) and Jacob Markstrom (14) are all within striking distance. After that, it’s Dan Cloutier (25) and Richard Brodeur (29) and then a sizeable leap to reach the levels attained by Roberto Luongo (64) and Kirk McLean (68).
But if Demko can stay healthy and handle a regular starter’s role, there’s every reason to believe his name will sit alongside McLean and Luongo by the time his new contract extension expires. The hope is that by then, he’ll be able to say he’s backstopped the Canucks on the same lengthy playoff journey Captain Kirk and Bobby Lu achieved. Of course, the real goal is to get that one last playoff victory that eluded the other two.
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