The Canucks’ crease is the messiest room in Vancouver, and the undrafted 26-year-old might be the one who forces someone out the door.
Every training camp has a storyline that refuses to sit quietly in the corner. In Vancouver this fall, it is a goaltending logjam three bodies deep.
Thatcher Demko. Kevin Lankinen. Nikita Tolopilo. Three NHL goaltenders, one net, and a rebuild that does not have the patience to carry all of them. GM Ryan Johnson and head coach Manny Malhotra will sort it out somewhere between the first camp scrimmage and the roster cutoff date, and Demko’s health will do plenty of the talking.
The American and the Finn have already been covered in this projection series. Now for the guy nobody drafted.
The Season That Bounced
Tolopilo spent 2025-26 on a string. Nineteen games in the AHL, 21 in the NHL, and a suitcase that never fully unpacked.
The numbers were not kind in either league:
– AHL: 3.07 goals-against average, .897 save percentage
– NHL: 3.61 goals-against average, .881 save percentage
– Starts with three-plus goals allowed: 14
That is the ugly version of the story. The other version is that Tolopilo flashed enough to keep the conversation alive, and flashed it against good teams.
The Two Nights Worth Rewatching
Late January was his moment. Three straight starts, four total goals allowed, and a grand total of one win to show for it, because the group in front of him could not buy a bounce.
One of those nights should have been his first career shutout. He stopped 32 shots in a 2-0 win and did everything a goaltender can do to earn the goose egg, then lost it on a technicality: 2:11 of the second period spent in the league’s concussion protocol meant Lankinen had to step in, and the shutout went to the team instead of the man.
Then came Jan. 31 against Toronto. Thirty-nine saves in a 3-2 shootout loss, including an overtime penalty shot denial on Auston Matthews. Goaltenders have built entire reputations on smaller moments than that.
The back half was harsher. After a month back in the AHL, Tolopilo was recalled for good and appeared in 11 games through March and April, starting eight. Only one of those starts kept the goals-against under two, a 2-1 loss to Vegas on April 7. He did close the year on a high note, turning aside 24 of 27 against the Ducks on April 12 for a win.
Three Doors, One Crease
So what happens now? There are exactly three ways this ends.
Door 1: He gets traded. The most likely outcome, and the tidiest one. A goaltender with 21 games of NHL experience and a real highlight reel has value, and Vancouver has more goaltenders than it has roster spots.
Door 2: The Canucks carry all three. Possible, rarely pretty. Three-goalie systems chew up ice time, leave someone rusty, and burn a roster spot that could belong to an extra forward or defenceman.
Door 3: Demko or Lankinen moves instead. The long shot, but the one that makes the most sense on a whiteboard.
Here is the wrinkle that keeps Door 3 alive: the ages do not line up. Demko and Lankinen are veterans on a team that is not built to win now. Tolopilo is 26 and fits the rebuild timeline almost perfectly, close enough to pair with Aleksei Medvedev, the goaltender-of-the-future prospect coming up through the OHL, without being so young that he needs babysitting.
What He Has to Do at Camp
The assignment is simple to describe and hard to execute: show up ready to compete for a job that technically does not exist yet.
A strong camp does one of two things for Tolopilo. It either forces management to seriously consider moving a veteran, or it pushes his trade value past the third-round-pick range and gets him a real opportunity somewhere else. Either result beats being the odd man out.
If the Canucks do run three goaltenders, nothing about that assignment changes. Be ready for every start, stay relevant to the organization’s plans, and keep the market warm.
The 2026-27 Projection
Projecting a goaltender whose address is undecided is a guessing game, so here is the honest version.
If he stays in Vancouver: roughly 30 to 35 starts as part of a rotation, with numbers in the same neighbourhood as last season. The wild card is the new coaching staff. A tighter defensive structure in front of him would do more for his save percentage than anything he changes in his own game.
If he is traded: the workload jumps, likely to 40 to 45 starts or more, depending on the situation he lands in. A team shopping for a 1A/1B partner is buying starts, not insurance.
What is not happening: waivers. There is no scenario where Vancouver risks losing him for nothing. He plays in the Orca, or he plays somewhere else. The AHL is off the table.
Bottom Line
Tolopilo is not the best goaltender on the Canucks’ depth chart, and he does not have to be. He is the one whose timeline matches the team’s, the one with the fewest guaranteed answers, and the one whose camp could quietly decide what Vancouver’s crease looks like for the next three years.
Keep an eye on him in September. The most interesting player in this competition is usually the one with the most to lose.