Demko unsure if he’ll be ready to start season with Canucks

Thatcher Demko missed the first day of Vancouver Canucks training camp on Thursday and isn’t sure if he’ll be ready for the start of the 2024-25 season with a lower-body injury suffered during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

“I can’t really answer that, to be honest,” Demko said. “If you had asked me a month ago, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. I will say we’re on a good trajectory right now.”

The 28-year-old goaltender skated alone in Penticton, B.C., before speaking to the media for the first time since the end of last season. He tried to explain how he went from being nearly healthy enough to return to play during the playoffs in late May to not being ready for training camp.

Demko was on the ice with new Canucks goaltending coach Marko Torenius before the first group took to the ice, doing skating drills in their crease, facing shots and moving side to side from their knees in the butterfly position.

Vancouver opens the regular season on October 9 against the Calgary Flames.

“I’ve never been more confident in the rehab process and as I continue to progress and work with Marko and our medical team, I hope I continue to progress week by week,” Demko said. “I’m not going to sit here and give you a timeline that could get me in trouble, but I’m really confident in where we’re going and I hope to be 100 percent sooner rather than later.”

Demko underwent surgery in the offseason but said it “had nothing to do with the injury” that continues to keep him sidelined indefinitely.

“It was very minor,” Demko said. “It took me about two weeks to recover from it, and I continued the rehab that I’m currently doing.”

Demko was a finalist for the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s top goaltender last season, finishing second in voting to Connor Hellebuyck of the Winnipeg Jets after setting NHL career highs in wins (35), shutouts (five) and save percentage (.918) despite being limited to 51 games after injuring his left knee in a game against the Jets on March 9. He returned on April 16 to play the final two games of the regular season and started the playoffs before injuring the same leg late in Game 1 of the Western Conference first round against the Nashville Predators.

Demko, who said Thursday the second injury was “muscular,” was close to returning when the Canucks were eliminated in Game 7 of the second round by the Edmonton Oilers and would have played in the conference final.

“Looking back, as a competitor, you kind of lie to yourself in a playoff situation and I thought I was maybe a little bit further along than I was, in hindsight,” Demko said. “I think I probably would have been in a position where I could have held on and maybe played in the conference finals. I hit a wall this summer as far as recovery and we saw a bit of a lack of progress for a couple months, and that’s obviously why I’m in the position I’m in right now.”

“But I would say in the last two or three weeks we’ve seen a lot of progress and we’re very confident about where I’m at and we’re happy with that.”

It was the third straight season since becoming a starter that Demko missed time with a lower-body injury; he missed the final three games in 2021-22 after trying to play through a right knee injury that required surgery this offseason and was still compensating for that injury in 2022-23 when he suffered a groin injury on Dec. 1 that forced him to miss nearly three months.

“When I first got injured in the playoffs, it was such a rare case, such a unique injury, that we didn’t really have a lot of research or case studies available or information to have a concrete timeline, and we were told that this was possibly a situation that we could find ourselves in, the one that we’re in right now,” Demko said. “I was able to rehab a ton this summer, and of course, it took a little bit longer than I would have liked obviously. But especially in the last couple of weeks on the ice, I’m feeling a lot better and there’s definitely a light at the end of the tunnel for me now and I’m fully confident that I’ll be back on the ice.”

Demko wasn’t the only Canucks player to miss the first day of training camp. General manager Patrik Allvin announced Wednesday that forward Teddy Blueger and defenseman Cole McWard each underwent “minor lower-body surgery.” The team announced Tuesday that forward Dakota Joshua is still recovering from surgery for testicular cancer.

Blueger, a centre who had 28 points (six goals, 22 assists) in 68 games with the Canucks last season, is expected to miss a week. McWard, who played one game with Vancouver last season, is expected to be out week to week.

There is no timeline for Joshua, who recorded an NHL career-high 18 goals and 32 points in 63 games last season.

NHL.com independent correspondent Kevin Woodley contributed to this report