Canucks sign goaltender to five-year extension

The Canucks announced they’ve agreed to terms with pending UFA goalie Kevin Lankinen on a five-year, $22.5M extension. It’ll keep him in Vancouver through the 2029-30 season with a cap hit of $4.5M. $8.5M of his total compensation will be paid via signing bonuses, Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK and The Athletic reports. The full breakdown of the deal is as follows, per PuckPedia:

2025-26: $2.5M base salary, $2.5M signing bonus, no-move clause
2026-27: $4M base salary, no-move clause
2027-28: $3M base salary, $2M signing bonus, 15-team no-trade clause
2028-29: $2.5M base salary, $2M signing bonus, 15-team no-trade clause
2029-30: $2M base salary, $2M signing bonus, 15-team no-trade clause

Lankinen, 30 in April, was set to be one of the top options on the open market among goaltenders this summer after the Capitals retained Logan Thompson on a six-year deal. He’s seen a massive jump in market value since his spin on the UFA market last summer when he had to wait until after training camp started to land a one-year, $875K deal in Vancouver.

It’s a testament to the success Lankinen has enjoyed this season with the Canucks, who likely aren’t in postseason position without him. The Finland native had been an above-average backup to Juuse Saros with the Predators for the past two seasons. He was an inconsistent 1B option with the Blackhawks before that, hovering right around league average for his career with a .905 SV% in 112 appearances for Chicago and Nashville from 2020-21 to 2023-24.

Lankinen hasn’t been world-beating in his third NHL stop in Vancouver, but he has shown the ability to keep up solid numbers in extended usage. He’s started 32 of the Canucks’ 55 games amid continued injury woes for 2024 Vezina runner-up Thatcher Demko, on pace to shatter his career-high of 37 set in his rookie season with Chicago. He’s logged a .905 SV% and 2.53 GAA, numbers that look more impressive than in years past, thanks to dwindling league averages, but they’ve also come behind decent team defense. Factoring in his playing environment amid netminders with similar workloads, his performance looks more pedestrian. His 2.58 expected goals against average is the sixth-lowest out of the 48 goalies to play at least 20 games this season, per MoneyPuck. Considering that comparatively easy workload, his 1.6 goals saved above expected only rank 28th out of that 48-player group.

That makes a $4.5M annual commitment for the rest of the decade look like fair compensation at best and a risky bet at worst. Thanks to a quickly rising salary cap, it should age far better than similarly-priced deals over the past few seasons. Still, Lankinen’s age and broadly consistent play over the past few years means he is what he is — a decent, but not great, option between the pipes who can sniff 40 starts. Considering his AAV is only $500K less than what emerging Kraken starter Joey Daccord landed on his recent extension, there’s undoubtedly a bit of sticker shock when combined with the five-year commitment and extensive trade protection.

He is an acceptable insurance option if Demko’s health continues to pose long-term concerns as he enters the final year of his contract in 2025-26. The two-time All-Star missed the first 24 games of the season with the popliteus muscle injury he sustained in Game 1 of Vancouver’s 2024 postseason run, another two in January with a back injury, and is now listed as week-to-week with a lower-body issue coming out of the 4 Nations Face-Off break. Understandably, his numbers haven’t been great when healthy this season. He’s got a .891 SV% and 2.87 GAA with a 6-6-3 record in 17 appearances, but he’s faced far worse defense than Lankinen and has still managed to save a goal above expected, according to MoneyPuck. On a per-hour basis, Demko has fared slightly better with a 0.064 GSAx/60 compared to Lankinen’s 0.048. However, it’s still a far cry from last year’s elite .918 SV% and 22.0 GSAx.

While it’s a significant commitment to keep Lankinen in British Columbia, it’s a necessary one without many other options in the pipeline as a potential Demko successor. No. 3 option Arturs Silovs was expected to compete for the backup job this year after a strong playoff showing for the Canucks in 2024 but has been borderline unplayable when given the chance, logging a 4.11 GAA and .847 SV% in seven NHL appearances this season. They don’t have any blue-chip prospects in the system between the pipes either, so getting at least some long-term security at the position was understandably a top priority for general manager Patrik Allvin.

Lankinen will be 35-years-old when his contract expires, so this will easily be the biggest payday of his career. He’ll be able to test unrestricted free agency in the summer of 2030.