The Vancouver Canucks have seen plenty of shakeup in the goaltender department in the last few weeks. 

The team is likely to lose tenured goaltending coach Roland ‘Rollie’ Melanson following a missed 2016 postseason – leaving the club looking for a new coach after years of using the esteemed instructor – and brought top prospect Thatcher Demko on board via an ELC after his junior season with Boston College. 

Now, they’ve added yet another piece to their depth chart in Michael Garteig, a fourth year NCAA goaltender out of Quinnipiac University. 

A native of Prince George, British Columbia, Garteig played in the BCHL prior to heading for the NCAA in the 2012-13 season. 

Undrafted at the NHL level, the 24-year-old goaltender was a work in progress during his four seasons of collegiate hockey, but a strong senior campaign – which saw him make the Mike Richter goaltender of the year short list and record eight shutouts in 43 games – suggests that there’s plenty of talent there for the Canucks to work with moving forward. 

NCAA goaltenders are great assets to have in the system, and the Canucks are no strangers to bringing in prospective talent to help out their depth. 

The team did so last year when they brought in Clay Witt out of Northeastern University, although Garteig offers far more upside than Witt did at the time – and from what I’ve seen, he offers more upside at this point, as well. 

This creates questions for Joe Cannata, though, with Richard Bachman still under contract for a year and Demko going pro as well. 

It’s entirely possible that Garteig will need a year of ECHL starts to get himself acclimated to the speed of the pro game, but the presence of both Demko and Bachman at the AHL level – and the tandem of Jacob Markstrom and Ryan Miller for one more year at the NHL level – leaves Cannata as the odd man out heading into the offseason. He impressed some of the personnel within the Canucks organization during the year with the development he showed, but he’s a pending free agent; with Garteig locked up and Demko coming in as well, he may be the goaltender they have to walk away from. 

One of the unique things about Garteig – that may have attracted the Canucks to him – is that the newly-inked netminder didn’t work with a goaltending coach until he was 19, yet won two consecutive goaltender awards in the BCHL and won a Canadian Junior ‘A’ national championship. 

That, paired with the progression of his stats during his time with Quinnipiac, suggest that he’s a malleable talent the team will be able to shape into someone useful before long. Worst case scenario, the team sees him blow the ECHL out of the water and finds themselves with too much goaltending talent in the system – which, for a team with a never-ending plethora of goaltending controversies, is far from a bad thing.