Whenever you go to a Vancouver Canucks game, something you may realize is that goaltending is pretty good the majority of the time. It’s hardly ever been bad since about 2007. The Canucks have been spoiled with great starting goaltenders who often never fail to impress. Every time you go to a Canucks game you won’t fail to hear the puck hit the home team goalies pads and out of harm’s way.

So what has made the Canucks goaltending so good for so long? Well, perhaps the goalie coaches have had a big impact on the goalies. The Canucks have had some really good goaltending coaches in recent memory such as Rollie Melanson and Ian Clark who are two very highly regarded goalie coaches and have led many goalies to success.

But at the same time, the goalie has to be the one to get the job done and put in the work. So why don’t we take a quick overview about who have been the Canucks starting goalies for the past decade and a half and why they’ve been so good.

The hot streak of great goalies all starts with who I think is the greatest Canucks goalie of all time Roberto Luongo. And man were we spoiled when he played for the Canucks. Luongo had two seasons where he was nominated for the Vezina trophy for the best goaltender of the year award and he helped bring the Canucks to their third-ever Stanley Cup Finals. The team unfortunately was not able to win it but that run cemented Luongo’s name as one of the greatest ever to wear a Canucks uniform. Luongo was an incredible goalie here for his eight seasons as a Canucks, but maybe more importantly was that he was always such a kind and giving person. He gave back to the community as much as he could and on top of that, he was also an incredibly funny guy.

Luongo did share the night for a couple of seasons with Cory Schneider who at one point stole the net from Luongo. What an absolute spoiled problem to have when your star goalie is being outplayed by another up-and-coming star goalie. Cory Schneider was such a stable and confident goalie who put up some great numbers in Vancouver which allowed him to steal the starting job from Luongo for a period of time. Schneider was the starting goaltender for two seasons while also sharing the net with Luongo and was primed to become the full-time starter once they traded Luongo, but they weren’t able to do so, so Schneider was tried in 2013 to the New Jersey Devils.

The Canucks then went back to Lungo as the full-time starter in the 2013-14 season, but not for long as Luongo was traded near the trade deadline after he was benched for an outdoor game at B.C Place. Eddie Lack then took the reigns and although he was pretty good during his time in Vancouver, he was still probably the weakest goalie they had in this era. Eddie Lack played well for the Canucks in the 2015 playoffs but wasn’t good enough to take the team too far.

In the 2014 off-season, the Canucks went and signed Ryan Miller to a three-year contract. Miller in my opinion is the most underrated goalie in Canucks history. The reason is that he was damn good on some bad Canucks teams. In his first season in 2015, he helped lead the team to the playoffs with a good .911 while also battling some injuries. The crazy thing is the two seasons after were awful for the Canucks as they finished third last in 2016 and second last in 2017. But Ryan Miller still somehow put up a .916 save percentage in 2016 and a .914 in 2017. That’s insanely good numbers for a guy playing on one of the worst teams in the league. Miller doesn’t get enough credit for his time in Vancouver and he really should get more recognition because he was stellar when he played here when he had no business being that good.

At this point, we go to 2017 where Jacob Markstrom took over as the starting goaltender after Ryan Miller left in free agency that summer. Markstrom was an interesting goalie at that time as he was drafted as an early second-round pick by Florida but could never seem to realize the potential he had. He ended up being the main piece in return in the Roberto Luongo trade that sent him back to the Florida Panthers in 2014. It was time to see if Markstrom could live up to the once high potential he had as see where he landed. And sure enough, he ended up turning out pretty great. At one point in Markstrom’s tenure with the Canucks, he was placed on waivers and he cleared it. If you aren’t sure what that means, it means any team could’ve taken him for free and nobody took him. And thankfully they didn’t because Markstrom became great. He was a steady number-one goalie who made the saves he needed to make and gave the Canucks a chance to win every night. There were so many nights where the Canucks should not have had any chance of winning games but were still able to thanks to Jacob Markstrom’s unbelievable play. He was a very likeable goalie too as he was always smiling and just really seemed to love being a Canuck.

It did seem as though Markstrom wanted to stay in Vancouver long term but a situation that doesn’t come along often stopped that from happening. The Seattle Kraken were about to come into the NHL and with that came the expansion draft. The Canucks were in a situation where they could only protect one of Jacob Markstrom or Thatcher Demko who was their young up-and-coming goalie who just had a great performance against the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2020 playoffs. Markstrom’s contract was expiring and they could re-sign Markstrom because they would likely lose him in a year so they had to choose between Markstrom and Demko, and they made the likely wiser decision and chose Demko.

This then brings us to the current era which is the Thatcher Demko era. I’ve watched this guy get drafted and watched his development through the years and I just knew when he was first selected by the team that he would be a great goalie. He had that swagger that not every goalie has and the way he played seemed so confident and poise. Demko struggled a bit to start when he was the starter in 2021 but then was able to quickly pick things up after that. Since then he has been a phenomenal goalie for the Canucks and continues to be as he will like be an all-star this year and is currently one of the best goalies in the league.

I’ve talked recently about how Roberto Luongo is the best goaltender in Canucks history and how he may never be surpassed, but I think if any goalie were to do it, it could be Demko. The only issue is he won’t play as many games as Luongo because goalies just don’t play that much anymore, but if Demko is here long enough and especially if he can help bring a Stanley Cup to this city, then he could surely be put in the illustrious tier with Luongo.

Canucks fans have really been spoiled with goalies in recent memory as they haven’t really been bad for a long time. Many teams would kill for the type of goaltending we’ve had in recent memory. So maybe we should be grateful for the things we have because you won’t know how good you have it until it’s gone.
It would’ve been nice to see some of these goalies win a championship with the Canucks, but when one of them does, you will always remember them for putting the city on their back.