Lankinen, at his peak, is a very solid goaltender. But for a Canucks team that’s long relied on its goalies to steal wins night in and night out, Lankinen doesn’t fit that job description. At least not in the same way Demko does. But with his teammates’ injury history, odds are Lankinen will have to play a lot of games anyway.

In truth, Lankinen’s goals hinge a lot on the situation around him. If Demko is healthy enough to play most of the year, is that meeting expectations for Lanks? If the Canucks are better than last season, how many games would he need to win for it to be considered a success? Let’s figure that out.

Lankinen doesn’t need to do much to meet the bar of success as a 1B. Ideally, Demko will be healthy enough to take the bulk of the workload this year, leaving Lankinen the smaller chunk of games for the first time in his Canucks tenure. Lankinen has thrived in the past with the rest and recovery time a number-one goalie isn’t afforded, and it would do his stats a lot of good to play slightly fewer games.

While save percentage is more of a team stat than a reflection of the goalie, a .900 percentage still means something to decision-makers and people watching. Being able to match the .902 from his first Canucks’ season would be a good start; exceeding it would be a massive win.

Last season, Lankinen’s 11 wins in 47 games were enough to lead all Canucks goalies in wins. Yikes.

Obviously, Lankinen needs the help of the team in front of him to make that a reality. And the roster most likely to suit up for the Canucks in 2026-27 isn’t expected to be much better than last year’s. If Lank can somehow pull another nine wins out of nowhere – still five shy of his 25 from 2024-25 – forget the Masterton; give him the Vezina Trophy.

Let’s be very clear: Kevin Lankinen was far from the reason the Canucks lost so many games last year. But it’s hard to imagine he has anywhere to go but up from an .876 save percentage on a last-place hockey team. The only real way things could get worse is with an injury flare-up (knock on wood).

In a lot of ways, that’s a very freeing place to be. Lankinen has seen the ocean floor; now he gets to swim back up. But he’s still going to have some ankle weights to carry in a porous Canucks roster that spent 43% of games last season in the defensive zone. A repeat of last season would be a disappointment, but with a more experienced blue line in front of him, Lankinen shouldn’t have too much trouble getting out of the depths as long as he stays healthy too.