{"id":409918,"date":"2026-01-13T10:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T10:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/409918\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T10:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T10:12:07","slug":"canucks-place-goalie-thatcher-demko-on-injured-reserve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/409918\/","title":{"rendered":"Canucks place goalie Thatcher Demko on injured reserve"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Canucks have sent all-star goalie <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/nhl\/players\/thatcher-demko\/4b2e0ce3-a2fd-4a0a-8001-21f599d3d41c\" class=\"sn-player-post-link\" target=\"_self\" data-player=\"4b2e0ce3-a2fd-4a0a-8001-21f599d3d41c\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Thatcher Demko<\/a> back to Vancouver so medical staff can evaluate his latest injury.<\/p>\n<p>Head coach Adam Foote says the 30-year-old American netminder will be out &#8220;a week or two&#8221; after leaving midway through Vancouver&#8217;s 5-0 loss to the Maple Leafs in Toronto on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>He was placed on injured reserve Sunday, and Nikita Tolopilo was called up from the American Hockey League&#8217;s Abbotsford Canucks under emergency conditions.<\/p>\n<p>Foote says Tolopilo will start in net Monday when Vancouver faces the Canadiens in Montreal.<\/p>\n<p>Demko missed 12 games in November and December as he recovered from a lower-body injury.<\/p>\n<p>Foote says the goalie has had &#8220;a couple of things going on&#8221; all season and &#8220;it might be possible&#8221; the Canucks will need to shut him down for the rest of the campaign, pending what they hear from doctors back in Vancouver.<\/p>\n<p>Demko has an 8-10-1 record with a .897 save percentage, a 2.90 goals-against average and one shutout this season.<\/p>\n<p>Vancouver has struggled with injuries throughout the season.<\/p>\n<p>Defenceman Derek Forbort and centres Marco Rossi, Teddy Blueger and Filip Chytil all remain on the IR list.<\/p>\n<p>Winger Conor Garland is slated to return to the lineup against the Habs on Monday after sitting out five games with an upper-body injury, but the Canucks will be without bruising forward Kiefer Sherwood due to an undisclosed ailment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s trying to go through something,&#8221; Foote said. &#8220;My gut says it\u2019ll be a week to three weeks, probably, so it doesn&#8217;t look promising.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sherwood leads the Canucks with 17 goals on the season.<\/p>\n<p>The pending free agent is widely considered Vancouver&#8217;s best asset as teams look to fortify their rosters ahead of the NHL trade deadline on March 6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Canucks have sent all-star goalie Thatcher Demko back to Vancouver so medical staff can evaluate his latest&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-409918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}