{"id":939334,"date":"2026-10-19T22:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T22:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/939334\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T22:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T22:50:09","slug":"canucks-manny-malholtra-says-no-concern-thatcher-demko-misses-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/939334\/","title":{"rendered":"Canucks&#8217; Manny Malholtra says no concern Thatcher Demko misses season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking to reporters Monday, head coach Manny Malhotra addressed the latest status of <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>. <\/p>\n<p>Most notably, the first-year NHL coach said, &#8220;To my knowledge, no,&#8221; when asked if there was any concern Demko might not play in the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a slow process for him, but he is getting better,&#8221; said Malhotra about Demko&#8217;s recovery from hip surgery in January 2026. &#8220;Again, don&#8217;t want to put a timeline on him, but the fact he is improving daily is a positive. But we&#8217;ve said from Day 1 we&#8217;re not in a situation where we&#8217;re in a rush.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>When asked if the veteran netminder is currently on the ice at all, Malhotra answered, &#8220;In this last week, I think we dialled it back. So I think he took a couple days off the ice this (past) weekend.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Demko, who signed a three-year, $25.5-million extension with the Canucks in July 2025, went 8-10-1 with an .897 save percentage, a 2.90 goals-against average and one shutout last season over 20 games.<\/p>\n<p>He missed a stretch of games from mid-November to mid-December with a lower-body injury, then returned and appeared in 10 more contests before going down again.<\/p>\n<p>Vancouver, which has opened this season 2-7-1, next plays Tuesday against the Carolina Hurricanes at home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking to reporters Monday, head coach Manny Malhotra addressed the latest status of Thatcher Demko. Most notably, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":939335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-939334","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\/939334","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=939334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/939335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}