Canucks: What does a successful 2025-26 look like for Kevin Lankinen?

It’s not often that a goaltender comes off a career season, starting the majority of his team’s games, and enters a new campaign with both a shiny new contract and no clue where he stands in the pecking order for the net. But that’s the situation Kevin Lankinen is staring down in 2025-26.

Lankinen joined the Canucks later than most UFAs, signing a one-year deal midway through training camp, after it became clear that Thatcher Demko wasn’t going to be ready to start the season. And when Arturs Silovs stumbled in the Canucks’ season opener, Lankinen got the nod and never looked back.

Lankinen set several career highs in 2024-25, more than doubling his previous bests in games played (51), wins (25) and shutouts (4). Even after Demko returned in December, it was Lankinen who kept the Canucks afloat for the majority of the season. Eventually, that hefty workload caught up with him and his numbers started to dip in the latter half of the season. But his strong start was not only enough to get him onto Team Finland for the Four Nations Face-Off, but also earn a five-year contract extension from the Canucks worth $22.5 million.

But there are still a lot of question marks about Lankinen’s long-term outlook. With Demko also staying on for the next four years, there’s only so much net to go around. How evenly can you split the starter’s job between two guys who both feel they can carry the bulk of the work? And what will happen if one goalie vastly outplays the other, especially if the goalie succeeding is Lankinen?

The good news for Kevin is that the pressure is a lot higher on Demko to be the Canucks’ biggest key to success. If Vancouver is going to make the playoffs, it’s going to be on the back of the Vezina-calibre goaltending that – as far as we know – only Demko can provide. If Lankinen is expected to live up to the standards Demko has set in years past, then the Canucks have bigger problems at hand.

But with that lack of pressure, perhaps Lankinen can thrive and recapture the early form that made him the first NHL goalie to win ten consecutive road games to start a season.

Exceeding expectations for Kevin Lankinen

Lankinen wins the starting job from Thatcher Demko, dominating in his starts and turns into a bonafide #1 for a playoff-bound Canucks team. That snowballs into another call from Finland for the 2026 Olympics in Italy, where he leads his fellow Finns to a medal.

Is this a long shot? For sure, but not an outright impossibility. The concept that Lankinen takes the lessons of playing 50+ games last year and acclimates to that playing schedule in 2025-26 is certainly doable. Whether or not he’ll even get that opportunity is the real x-factor.

Meeting expectations for Kevin Lankinen

Lankinen plays the 1B role to a tee; well enough to win a fair number of games for the Canucks, but not spectacularly enough to usurp Demko’s spot as the number one goalie come playoff time. By all accounts, this is the most likely scenario out of all three, especially if everything goes the way the Canucks are expecting them to.

Lankinen’s own expectations are going to be higher, especially so soon after signing that five-year contract. But management’s decision to extend Demko a year out (and trading AHL playoff MVP Arturs Silovs to Pittsburgh as a result) might be an admittance of early buyer’s remorse. But Lankinen will have all the time he needs to assuage those concerns.

Below expectations for Kevin Lankinen 

Lankinen struggles to recapture his form from the first half of 2024-25 and underperforms in the few starts he does get backing up Demko. This would not only put the Canucks in a position where they can only trust one goalie to win games, but they’ll also have a goalie with more term than their starter that they’d likely need to find a replacement for. And the odds of finding a good deal for a backup with four years of term are pretty damn slim.

Needless to say, meeting expectations is going to be crucial for Lankinen and the Canucks going forward, even if he can’t be the all of the starter he was last season. Lankinen has the tools to be an above-average 1B option and then some, and if he’s able to build off the momentum, it won’t just benefit him; it’ll be better for Demko and the goalie tandem’s success as a whole. A rising tide lifts all ships.