The goaltending news just won’t stop in the Vancouver Canucks universe.
By now, Canucks fans have heard all about the Ian Clark role change from Head Goalie Coach and Director of Goaltending to goalie scout and goaltending development coach, as well as Thatcher Demko’s timetable still up in the air from an injury that he suffered in Game 1 of the first round of last years playoffs.
With the news of Demko’s availability for the start of the regular season in question, Chek TV’s Rick Dhaliwal highlighted Kevin Lankinen as a potential fit to play a 1A/1B role with last season’s playoff standout Artūrs Šilovs until Demko returned to full health.
However, the situation has had some grey clouds roll in over the last 24 hours. Silovs was expected to be the starting goaltender for Team Latvia as they attempt to qualify for the 2026 Olympics, which will be held in Italy. The hockey federation raised some eyebrows when they revealed that Šilovs’ – the starting goaltender who brought Latvia their first medal (bronze) bronze medal in the 2023 IIHF World Championship, earning tournament MVP – name was not to be on the roster.
Sportsnet’s Satiar Shah translated a quote from Team Latvia’s head coach regarding Šilovs absence from the roster.
Then, later on Thursday, the federation released this statement regarding Šilovs and his absence.
The Province’s Patrick Johnston shared the translation:
“Initially, it was planned to register goalkeeper Artūrs Šilov for the tournament, who, unfortunately, did not manage to recover quickly enough from knee ligament inflammation, which prevents him from participating in the tournament games with maximum performance,” they said.
Šilovs, 23, is coming off a statement playoff run where he led the Canucks to Game 7 of the second round after making his playoff debut in Game 4 of the first round against the Nashville Predators. The Latvian goaltender had a strong 10-game performance in relief for an injured Demko and Casey DeSmith, finishing with a 5-4-1 record, 2.91 goals against average and a .898 save percentage.
The young Canucks goaltender will have 41 days to recover from his knee ligament inflammation before the Canucks’ opening night puck drop against the Calgary Flames on October 9th.