Leevi Meriläinen’s First Canucks Win Shows Early Promise

The 24-year-old Finnish netminder signed a one-year, $1.1 million deal with the Senators on July 2. Once the deal is completed next summer, he will be an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent (RFA). It’ll be interesting to see what his next deal could be, especially with Lankinen and Demko signed for at least the next three seasons.

Regardless of how the contract situations play out, the Canucks have something in Meriläinen. It’s not every day that a goalie comes into a new situation, especially with a new team, and performs like this right away. Could this be another Brandon Bussi situation everyone saw with the Carolina Hurricanes last season? Possibly, but there are still 81 games remaining in the season. Furthermore, the Canucks are in the beginning stages of a rebuild. However, it brings optimism for who could be their number one goalie of the future.

When it comes down to it, head coach Manny Malhotra and general manager Ryan Johnson will have to make tough decisions when Demko returns. Will they make a roster move to have space for three goalies? No one will be envious of those guys making those decisions whenever their number one goalie returns from rehab. Until then, the Canucks will make do with Lankinen and Meriläinen. That said, with how the latter has played so far in two games, that does give the team some hope to win more games in 2026-27.

Rebuilds are tough for fans because there will be more losses than wins over the course of a season. That said, when things are going well and wins happen more often than not, it goes a long way. It also helps when a rebuilding team has a promising young core to build the future around. That could be the case with the Canucks and Meriläinen, who is already showing promise early this season.