Waivers seem to be a key part of the Vancouver Canucks’ strategy early on in the 2026-27 season.

And we don’t mean medical waivers, though these Canucks might be so bad that you could reasonably need to sign one before watching them. No, we mean the transactional form of waivers.

The Canucks finished in last place in the NHL for the 2025-26 season, and in doing so, they secured the top spot on the waiver claim priority list until November 1 (at which point, whatever team is in last place gets top priority, and odds are that’s still the Canucks). This means that whenever any player is placed on waivers by one of the other 31 NHL teams, the Canucks will have the first right to claim that player.

It’s something that new GM Ryan Johnson has almost pledged to take advantage of. He’s spoken about it several times throughout the summer and into the preseason. He recently told Thomas Drance of The Athletic that “I think there’s a rush on the wire coming through, and I think there’s going to be some interesting players.”

It’s a beat we’ve been covering here for months now, scoping out potential waiver candidates during the offseason and in the weeks leading up to training camp.

Most of our coverage, however, has been around the idea of the Canucks snagging an extra defender, or a winger with some lingering potential, on the waiver wire to improve their overall depth. To hear Johnson talk of it, however, the Canucks aren’t limiting their waiver options.

“It’s something we’re looking at in all positions (and in goal) as well,” Johnson told Drance and The Athletic. “If there’s something that gives us, maybe it’s a young player that we see as a prospect who we’d be interested in working with, or veteran players — second organization players — who just haven’t had the opportunity, but who we’ve been tracking and have high interest in. So we’ve had multiple conversations leading into training camp, working together to identify those players.”

The specific mention of the goaltending position is interesting. For most of the offseason, the discussion around the Canucks’ crease had to do with there being too many goalies, and the possibility of having to waive Nikita Tolopilo because Thatcher Demko and Kevin Lankinen were occupying the starting and backup positions.

But the closer we’ve got to the regular season, the more the situation has changed. Or, perhaps, not changed enough. Demko is still recovering from injury and has yet to be a full participant in training camp or hint at any readiness for a preseason game. At this point, we have to assume that Demko will not be ready to start the year.

Lankinen becomes the starter by default, then. That leaves Tolopilo as the presumed backup. But previously, the team seemed intent on placing Tolopilo on waivers, hoping he made it down to Abbotsford where he could serve as a third-string option if another Demko injury occurred.

Those initial plans, plus Johnson’s most recent comments about goalies on the waiver wire, suggest that the Canucks might not believe that Tolopilo is ‘their guy.’ Or, at the very least, that there might be a better option or two out there, specifically via the waiver wire.

This could be a chance for the Canucks to have their cake and eat it, too. A perfect scenario might be one in which the Canucks pluck a new goalie from waivers to serve as Lankinen’s backup to start the year, and then subsequently successfully waive Tolopilo down to Abbotsford. If that works out, the Canucks are now significantly deeper in the net, regardless of Demko’s health, and have ample coverage for every eventuality, including a potential trade of Lankinen down the road.

It could just be a matter of scouting and selecting the right waiver goaltender.

With that, we’d imagine the Canucks are focused on an under-25 goalie. There will probably be some quality veteran tweeners waived, too, but the Canucks have to focus on the future as a rebuilding team. If they’re picking up a goalie to play on the NHL roster instead of Tolopilo, it should be a goalie that they believe has both current and future potential to be better than him.

And there may just be a few names worthy of that consideration on PuckPedia’s handy-dandy “Likely to Be Waived” page.

Remi Poirier is a 24-year-old who has yet to play an NHL game, but only because of Dallas’ awesome and seemingly always-healthy goaltending depth. Poirier takes up a lot of the net with his 6’3”, 211-pound frame, and uses it effectively. He’s gone eight straight years with a save percentage above .900, going back to the QMJHL and carrying him through the ECHL and the AHL, where he started 52 games for the Texas Stars last year.

Leevi Meralainen is another 24-year-old with size. He’s already had some opportunities with the Senators, including posting a 1.99 GAA and a .925 save percentage as a rookie in 12 games in 2024-25. Meralainen has been overall inconsistent, but has flashed great ability at times.

Either could be what the Canucks are looking for, depending on the reads of their pro scouts. But both are relatively comparable to Tolopilo himself, and might not be seen as outright upgrades. For that, we turn to two former Team Canada goalies at the World Juniors who could also be headed toward the waiver wire.

The first is Devon Levi, and it’s a name most will already be familiar with. Now 24, Levi starred for Canada at the 2021 WJC and did well enough to earn a spot on the Canadian Olympic Team a year later, in 2022. Rising from the college ranks to the AHL, Levi has put together some stellar stats, with a .904 being his lowest save percentage in any given year. He’s been especially effective in the postseason, but his NHL opportunities have been limited to just 39 games. This is a little bit due to a perceived lack of progress in Levi’s game, but more so due to the often crowded crease in Buffalo of late. This past season, Levi found himself stuck behind all three of Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Alex Lyon, and Colten Ellis and did not get a single call-up.

Anticipating his being placed on waivers this preseason, the Sabres traded Levi to the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for a third-round pick. Many expect Levi to finally get his shot as Frederik Andersen’s backup in Edmonton, but the Oilers also have Tristan Jarry on hand and under contract at a $5.375 million cap hit. That still gives Levi a good chance to end up on waivers at some point, at which point the Canucks would have to consider taking a look.

But there’s another goaltender who might be both a better overall prospect and more likely to hit the waiver wire than Levi, and it’s Dylan Garand of the New York Rangers. The Victoria-born product also turned 24 this summer and is newly waiver-eligible. He was drafted in the fourth round out of the Kamloops Blazers and made a strong mark in the WHL, including a final season with 34 wins and a .925 save percentage, before joining the pro ranks. He tended net for Canada at both the 2021 and 2022 World Juniors.

Garand became the Hartford Wolf Pack’s starting goaltender almost immediately upon joining the team in 2022-23. His stats have fluctuated with the quality of the Wolf Pack, but Garand has steadily drawn praise from scouts along the way. At various times, he has been ranked as a top-10 goaltending prospect.

However, Garand has been stuck behind Igor Shesterkin and a series of veteran backups ever since joining the Rangers organization. He’s been limited to just three NHL appearances. He’s done incredibly well in those three appearances – a 2-0-1 record with a 1.62 GAA and a .948 save percentage –, but it hasn’t gotten him any closer to a full-time gig.

This year, the Rangers brought in Joonas Korpisalo to serve as Shesterkin’s backup. That seemingly confirms that they plan to place Garand on waivers at some point before the season begins.

And if/when they do, that’s probably exactly the kind of goalie that could reasonably be considered a present and future upgrade on Tolopilo. The Canucks, again, get first claim, so they could quite easily claim Garand, waive Tolopilo, and then hope they end up with both at the end of the process. And if Tolopilo still gets claimed, at least they already have an organizational replacement.

Starting the year with Demko on IR, Garand challenging Lankinen for starts at the NHL level, and Tolopilo available in Abbotsford as an NHL-ready option sounds like a much better situation than the one the Canucks currently find themselves in. And if Garand could possibly turn into a goaltender of some long-term significance to the rebuild, that’s all the better.