The Vancouver Canucks have placed goaltender Nikita Tolopilo on NHL waivers for Sunday, September 27th.

Tolopilo is now available for any NHL team to claim and keep on their NHL roster. If he clears on Monday, September 28th, he will report to the AHL’s Abbotsford Canucks.

The NHL preseason officially came to a close this weekend, and with the NHL regular season beginning Tuesday and all 32 teams’ rosters at 2 PM PT on Monday, Sunday was always going to be a busy day for the NHL waiver wire. Tolopilo is the only player the Canucks put on waivers on Sunday.

The Canucks, of course, claimed 24-year-old goaltender Leevi Meriläinen on Friday, which appeared to be the beginning of the end for Tolopilo’s chances at sticking around with the big club. Tolopilo, 26, signed with the Canucks as an overseas free agent after putting up a league-best .924 save percentage in the Allsvenskan league over in Sweden in 2022-23.

In the time since, Tolopilo has appeared in 90 games for the AHL Abbotsford Canucks and 23 NHL games with Vancouver. 23 of those 21 NHL games came last season, when the Canucks needed Tolopilo to help withstand the loss of Thatcher Demko to multiple injuries after trading away Arturs Silovs to the Pittsburgh Penguins ahead of the 2025-26 season. Through his 21 starts last season, Tolopilo put up an .881 save percentage to go along with a 3.61 goals against average.

Through two starts during the Canucks’ four-game preseason, Tolopilo allowed six goals on 44 shots, losing both games he started in.

The Canucks jumped at the opportunity to claim Meriläinen on waivers, and as we have written over the past couple of days, the move was a bit of a no-brainer for a rebuilding team to make.

Canucks GM Ryan Johnson spoke this week about the club’s decision to claim Meriläinen as well.

“It’s something we’ve been planning for months now, just as far as any position, if we had an opportunity to take on somebody that we thought very well of,” Johnson said. “Leevi was somebody that we had looked at as you’re going across teams across the league that may have to make some tough decisions. He was a guy that we had targeted; if he was available, we were going to take a serious look at it.

“So when he did, understanding that there’s moving parts around it, we just felt it was something with where we were at, with his pedigree, and where he’s at in his process, that it fit with where we were as an organization.”