The Canucks Still Have a Goalie Question - Now What?

Some preseason nights don't tell you much by the score. Thursday's 2-1 Vancouver Canucks loss to the Edmonton Oilers was one of those nights. Nikita Tolopilo stopped 12 of 14 shots over the first two periods. Not exactly a disaster. Not exactly a performance that makes everybody sit back and say, “Well, there's our backup goalie.”

Then Chris Driedger came in for the third period and stopped all seven shots he faced. And suddenly, here we are talking about the goaltending again. That’s the funny thing about preseason. One good period can change the conversation.

Tolopilo didn't lose the Canucks’ backup job Thursday.

The easy reaction is to look at Tolopilo's .857 save percentage and Driedger's perfect night and declare that the veteran has passed the kid. But should fans be ready to go there? Tolopilo played behind a lineup that wasn’t exactly the Canucks’ regular-season team, and he faced an Edmonton group with plenty of players fighting for jobs. This is evaluation time, not playoff hockey.

But there is something worth watching. With Thatcher Demko out, Vancouver needs somebody to give Kevin Lankinen some help. Tolopilo has been viewed as a possibility, but Thursday certainly didn't lock anything down. And that's where Driedger gets interesting.

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Sometimes the backup job finds the goalie.

Driedger is in camp on a professional tryout. Those are usually the guys you figure are there to provide competition, depth and another body in the crease. Then one of them comes into a game and stops everything. Now the coaching staff has another decision to make.

That's actually a healthy situation for the Canucks. Nobody should be handing out the backup job because of one preseason game. But nobody should ignore a strong performance either.

There is still another preseason game Saturday against Seattle. That one could tell us plenty. The bigger question isn't whether Tolopilo had a bad night. He didn't.

Can Vancouver find some certainty behind Lankinen?

The question now is whether Vancouver can find a goalie who gives them certainty while Demko is unavailable. That's a much bigger question than one 2-1 preseason loss.

And sometimes the answer comes from the guy nobody was really talking about when camp opened.

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