{"id":909755,"date":"2026-09-26T01:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T01:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/909755\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T01:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T01:02:11","slug":"canucks-notebook-merilainen-pickup-could-prove-significant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/909755\/","title":{"rendered":"Canucks notebook: Merilainen pickup could prove significant"},"content":{"rendered":"

VANCOUVER \u2014 They may have lost the draft lottery, but the Vancouver Canucks<\/a> are winning the waiver wire.<\/p>\n

Thank goodness the National Hockey League hasn\u2019t turned waivers into a fan spectacle in which any team that misses the playoffs can win the lottery and pick first.<\/p>\n

As the worst team in hockey last season, the Canucks are guaranteed the first crack at anyone on waivers before Nov. 1. And Friday, they got one of their top pre-season picks when they claimed Ottawa Senators goalie Leevi Merilainen.<\/p>\n

Waiver pickups in the NHL are often transaction footnotes that are soon forgotten. But knowing that star goalie Thatcher Demko might not be healthy to start this season, the Canucks had the 24-year-old Merilainen on their radar all summer. His free acquisition has the potential to be significant for the rebuilding team.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s certainly significant to Canucks centre Autu Raty, who went to school and grew up with Merilainen in their hometown of Oulu, Finland.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, great pickup,\u201d Raty said after practising Friday for the Canucks\u2019 final pre-season game Saturday against the Seattle Kraken at Rogers Arena. \u201cI\u2019ve known him since seventh grade, maybe earlier. We were in the same sports school. We trained together in the mornings three or four times a week, and then we played U16 on the same team, and then world juniors together. Just a really good goalie, works really hard, and just a great guy. So really happy to get him on our team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pressed for more intelligence on the goalie who is expected to be Kevin Lankinen\u2019s backup when the Canucks open their regular season Tuesday in Edmonton, Raty said: \u201cHe’s one of those goalies that\u2019s just really calm. Tall, good reach, really good glove. Sometimes … actually, he\u2019s my goalie now, so I don\u2019t want to give away too much. I just think he\u2019s really athletic.\u201d<\/p>\n

So do the Canucks, who also believe Merilainen has a much higher ceiling than he has shown.<\/p>\n

He struggled as an NHL rookie last season in Ottawa, forced by injuries to play 20 games in which his save percentage was a dismal .860. But Merilainen posted a .925 save rate in 12 NHL games the previous season and has been stellar at the American Hockey League level, with a save rate of .913 over three seasons.<\/p>\n

He was a third-round pick of the Senators in 2020 and appears to be an upgrade over the Canucks’ third-string goalie Nikita Tolopilo, an undrafted 26-year-old who has made progress the last three seasons but has a career save percentage of .902 in the AHL.<\/p>\n

Last season, Tolopilo was 6-11-2 with an .881 save percentage in 21 appearances for the Canucks.<\/p>\n

After assigning 19-year-old centre Braeden Cootes to the minor-league Abbotsford Canucks on Friday, the Canucks are not expected to cut down to their 23-player NHL roster until Monday. But it will be stunning if they decide to put Tolopilo ahead of Merilainen, and general manager Ryan Johnson expressed little appetite Friday for keeping three goalkeepers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not something that I\u2019ve intended to do,\u201d Johnson told reporters. \u201cObviously, we\u2019ll get through tomorrow night (against Seattle). The three-goaltender system, from my experience at any level, is complicated for everybody and more so for the goalies themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tolopilo requires waivers to be reassigned, but the Canucks still have journeyman Chris Driedger in camp on a professional tryout. Driedger could be a hedge against losing Tolopilo on waivers.<\/p>\n

Johnson confirmed that Demko continues to recover from major surgery on his hips last February and will not be healthy to start the season. He said regardless of Merilainen\u2019s availability, the plan for Saturday is to give Lankinen all of the final pre-season game.<\/p>\n

Lankinen has been planning for the likelihood of starting Game 1 since before training camp began.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI feel like I’m ready to go already,\u201d he said Friday. \u201cI’ve been working really hard this summer, skating a bunch. I came in early to Vancouver as well to make sure I’m hitting the ground running before training camp. Confidence is high, body\u2019s feeling great, so I’m looking forward to the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lankinen stopped 29 of 32 shots in his only other pre-season game, Tuesday\u2019s 3-1 road loss to the Calgary Flames, and Lankinen said Johnson\u2019s confirmation that Demko remains unavailable indefinitely does not change his mindset.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, I’m happy for Thatcher that he\u2019s making his way back,\u201d Lankinen said. \u201cI know he’s been working really hard this summer again, and just seeing him putting in the work is encouraging and good for the team. But from my side, I’m always just focusing on my own little thing. And as a goalie, I have a simple job: I\u2019ve got to stop the puck and not worry about anything else, and that’s what I’ll keep doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson said centre Filip Chytil, who hurt his shoulder in Thursday\u2019s 2-1 exhibition loss to the Oilers when he tripped over referee Riley Brace, will be out week-to-week with a muscle issue. This constitutes good news for Chytil, who played just 12 games last season due to head and neck injuries that appeared to threaten his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was in great spirits this morning,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cAn unfortunate bounce for a guy who\u2019s been through so much. But we\u2019re just evaluating right now. It will be a week-to-week thing, but nothing at this point that\u2019s alarming. We\u2019re just glad he\u2019s OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Cootes going to the AHL and Chytil headed to injured reserve, it was noteworthy Friday that Max Sasson was back in the middle at practice between wingers Drew O\u2019Connor and Linus Karlsson.<\/p>\n

Struggling for stretches last season, Sasson was converted to the wing by former Canucks coach Adam Foote, but has been a centre for Manny Malhotra since training camp began.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely see it as a vote of confidence,\u201d Sasson, 26, said. \u201cI had a talk with Manny this morning, and we didn’t even talk about me playing centre or wing. It was just: \u2018This is the lineup and I want your speed. I want you to be flying out there and challenge guys and put some pressure on defencemen.\u2019 So I see it as a vote of confidence. I’m excited for the opportunity because I think I can be a centre in this league. I know there’s been talk that maybe I can’t be, so I’m excited to prove it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sasson missed three days this week to attend the funeral of his grandmother, Diane Sasson, in Farmington Hills, Mich. The Canuck said he saw his grandma every week growing up, and during his summers off from college and professional hockey usually went to her house for Sunday brunch. He said she was 84 when she died after a six-year battle with cancer.<\/p>\n

Johnson on demoting Cootes, the 2025 first-round pick who had three points in three pre-season games: \u201cMy conversation with Braeden was very complimentary of everything \u2014 how he’s approached it mentally, physically, how he’s handled everything. Braeden is going to go to Abbotsford and \u2014 you guys are going to hate me for this \u2014 but there’s no timeline. For him being able to go and fight through some tough situations in the American Hockey League, when you come back to a more structured and predictable NHL, you’re that much better for it. He’s 19 years old. I gave him a bunch of examples of players that are a year older than him, that went (to the minors), had success, got one call-up, and never went back.\u201d<\/p>\n

How the Canucks practised<\/p>\n

DeBrusk-Pettersson-Lekkerimaki
Ohgren-Rossi-Boeser
O\u2019Connor-Sasson-Karlsson
Bains-Cotter-Gallagher
Raty<\/p>\n

Buium-Hronek
Oleksiak-Willander
Pettersson Jr.-Schenn
Brisebois-Mancini<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VANCOUVER \u2014 They may have lost the draft lottery, but the Vancouver Canucks are winning the waiver wire.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":909756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-909755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=909755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/909756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}