Canucks' Demko focused on what he can control during schedule breaks

The National Hockey League named Thatcher Demko its third star of the month. If he had played more than twice after Dec. 12, the Vancouver Canucks’ goalie might have earned an even shinier merit badge.

After the first of another series of practices on Monday while the Canucks wait for another game, Demko still led the NHL with 27 starts and 1,603 minutes of goaltending time. But his 5-2 win Saturday in Seattle was just Demko’s third game in 20 days due to a holiday schedule break that was extended by five games postponed due to COVID-19.

The Canucks are killing time again this week, hoping that Saturday’s home game against the Ottawa Senators will actually occur after Wednesday’s scheduled visit by the New York Islanders was postponed.

For a goalie who is powerfully on top of his game — arguably the best in the NHL the last five weeks — Demko is being challenged by the lack of playing rhythm since his string of seven straight starts ended on Dec. 12.

Never has Demko been sharper as a starter, nor less busy.

“It’s fine,” Demko told reporters on Zoom. “I mean, if I’m speaking as a person and not a hockey player here, it’s a little frustrating for sure. Everyone’s kind of dealing with it. We’ve all been saying that for two years now. I don’t want to say too much about it. Just take it day by day, and if we’re lucky enough to play games this week — win.”

The 26-year-old’s 15 wins are tied for fifth in the NHL, which is more impressive than it sounds because the Canucks have won only 16 games and on Saturday climbed above .500 for the first time since Oct. 26.

The American goalie’s save percentage is .920, but over his last 10 starts it is .948.

The current COVID-19 outbreak probably cost Demko the chance to go to the Olympics but, as a consolation prize, one reporter on Monday invited Demko into the Vezina Trophy discussion for this season.

“It’s an honour to be in that discussion, but we haven’t even played half the games yet, so I guess we can just cool it on that a little bit,” he said. “We’ve got a lot more games to play and a lot more work to do to try to get in the playoffs here.”

With a degree in psychology from Boston College, Demko is a deep thinker. That can be a dangerous thing for professional athletes, depending on whose brain is doing the thinking and whose mouth is articulating those thoughts.

But the San Diegan’s mental strength, including his ability to focus amid the unprecedented NHL upheaval of the last two years, has helped move Demko over the last two years from a talented prospect to one of the best dozen or so goaltenders in the world.

He said earlier this season that his area for growth as an athlete is now largely mental.

“There’s a ceiling on our physical capacities,” Demko explained on Monday. “There’s a ton of guys that aren’t in this league that are really good goaltenders, good players. So it’s got to be something else to separate these guys (and) I think the mental side of things is the thing that does that.

“I think it’s something where there’s no ceiling on mental capacity. You can always just keep building in that regard. The guys that are great goalies in the league or have been great goalies in the league, that’s kind of what they’re always preaching. It’s all up top.”

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Canucks coach Bruce Boudreau said he isn’t smart enough to discuss Demko’s “human development,” but did say he is as good as any goalie he has coached.

Demko and defenceman Quinn Hughes have been the best Canucks this season. Boudreau, who joined the Canucks on Dec. 5, nearly two years after being fired by the Minnesota Wild, said he didn’t know how good Demko and Hughes were until the last four weeks.

“When I was in Anaheim, it was the same thing: people back East, they don’t know about these guys,” Boudreau said. “They just don’t know. They go to sleep before they play (on the West Coast). They don’t read about them or hear about them. So they don’t know how good these guys are.

“I’ve been impressed by more than just those two guys. But those two guys have really, really impressed me. They’re great hockey players — as good as I’ve ever had that position.”

Backup Jaroslav Halak started two of the Canucks’ last five games, and stole a point in Thursday’s 2-1 shootout loss to the Kings in Los Angeles, but Demko will start the next game — whenever it is.

The Canucks are expected to practise Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, and Boudreau said his main objective is to upgrade players’ conditioning after so many recent postponements.

With four players still unavailable due to positive COVID-19 tests, the Canucks practised Monday with the same 11 forwards and seven defencemen who played in Seattle.

“We want to keep playing as much as we can,” defenceman Tyler Myers said. “We don’t want to keep losing guys (to COVID); that’s the downside of it. It’s certainly challenging. It’s been challenging, I think, for every team in the league with all the games being postponed. A lot of moving parts at the moment, and we just have to make sure we’re ready when the time comes.”

Boudreau offered no update on the players who are in COVID protocol. But five-day quarantines have expired for forwards Brock Boeser and Phil di Giuseppe, who tested positive before Wednesday’s game in Anaheim. If they have no health-related border issues, they should rejoin the Canucks this week.

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