After practice on Thursday, Vancouver Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet chose not to confirm his starting goaltender for Friday night’s tilt with the Philadelphia Flyers, his club’s second game of the 2024-25 NHL campaign.

While that certainly doesn’t confirm that Kevin Lankinen will get the start, this author is here to tell you that Lankinen should get the start, and that that’s okay.

Arturs Silovs certainly didn’t have his A-Game for the Canucks’ home opener on Wednesday night, opening his season with a .769 save percentage after getting beat by six of 26 Flames shots. But this is far less about Silovs’ performance on opening night than it is about Lankinen’s previous body of work.

Regular readers of this site will know we’re big fans of Lankinen’s game around here. The 29-year-old Finnish netminder has been one of the NHL’s best backups over the past two seasons, and he likely would have started even more games over those seasons if he wasn’t backing up one of the game’s elite starters in Juuse Saros.

By now, everyone knows the story of how the Canucks and Lankinen ended up with each other, but here’s a brief summary anyway.

Canucks are in contact with Lankinen on July 1st, but opt to sign Jiri Patera to a two-way contract, thinking that they’ll be fine with an NHL tandem of Thatcher Demko and Arturs Silovs. Later in the summer, the Canucks learn about Demko’s speedbump in recovery, and the overall uncertainty of the situation makes them re-visit their depth at the goaltending position. And wouldn’t you know it, Kevin Lankinen was still without a team as training camps approached. The Canucks eventually signed Lankinen on the third day of camp, greatly improving their strength in the crease.

In my mind, Lankinen was never brought in to be Silovs’ “backup”. It’s not a knock on Silovs, but at 23 years old, Lankinen is by far the more experienced and proven NHL netminder. At the very least, this is likely a 1A-1B situation, with the two netminders splitting starts until one of them gets undeniably hot.

Silovs’ remarkable performance in the 2024 playoffs certainly earned him the right to get the club’s home opener, which he did. But barring a shutout or some otherworldly performance from Silovs vs. the Flames, it always felt like Lankinen would be the goaltender the Canucks tabbed their starter vs. the Flyers on Friday night.

The Canucks have a morning skate today and we should find out officially if that’s the path they’ll choose. If they do, it shouldn’t be read as a lack of confidence in or an indictment on young Arturs Silovs. Rather, it should be the Canucks flexing their newfound strength at their last line of defence thanks to a sharp signing by Patrik Allvin at the 11th hour.