Canucks Sign Chris Driedger To PTO

The Vancouver Canucks are bringing a netminder back from Russia to see if he can offer additional goaltending depth for the 2026-27 season. According to a team announcement, the Canucks have signed Chris Driedger to a professional tryout agreement.

After failing to secure a professional contract, or tryout offer for that matter, last offseason, Driedger, 32, tested his mettle in the KHL with the Traktor Chelyabinsk. It was a fairly short-lived arrangement, as Driedger and Traktor mutually terminated his contract in November after managing an 8-9-7 record in 23 games with a .892 SV% and 3.05 GAA.

Still, Driedger has plenty of experience in the North American professional circuit to fall back on. A former third-round pick of the Ottawa Senators, Driedger has a lifetime record of 106-78-24 record in 217 AHL contests with a .910 SV% and 2.74 GAA. Additionally, albeit in fewer opportunities, he has a respectable 31-24-5 record in 67 NHL games with a .917 SV% and 2.45 GAA.

Although it’s difficult to earn a spot on an NHL roster in a brief preseason, Driedger has higher odds than most of converting his PTO into a standard contract. Vancouver is hopeful that netminder Thatcher Demko will recover from hip surgery in a quick manner, but it’s doubtful that he’ll be ready for the regular season, let alone training camp.

Clearly, the Canucks were positioned to lean on Kevin Lankinen again in a starter’s capacity while Demko recovers. Still, there was hardly any competition behind him. Before bringing in Driedger in a tryout capacity, odds are the Canucks would have begun the 2026-27 season with Nikita Tolopilo as the backup behind Lankinen.

After Demko had his 2025-26 season prematurely ended due to injury, the Canucks utilized Tolopilo to fill in some of the gaps. Unfortunately, the experiment didn’t go well, as he managed a 6-11-2 record in 21 games with a .881 SV% and 3.61 GAA. Now, Vancouver may still give Tolopilo the opportunity to earn the backup role over Driedger to start the year, but he will now have some competition instead of it being handed to him out of circumstance.