The Vancouver Canucks have one of the best problems in the NHL — amass surplus in goaltending talent. It was ultimately for this reason that the team parted ways with Calder Cup MVP Artūrs Šilovs, who wouldn’t have been able to get the NHL playing minutes he wanted when lodged behind Thatcher Demko and Kevin Lankinen. The goaltending puzzle in Abbotsford appears to be set already as well, with Nikita Tolopilo and Ty Young taking up the roles as starter and backup or 1A and 1B.
Vancouver’s stocked cabinets aren’t limited to just those players, however, as there’s another goaltender who was just put on waivers today. Jiří Patera, who looks to fit in somewhere between the Abbotsford Canucks and the Kalamazoo Wings of the ECHL, is in his second season with the Canucks. Unfortunately, this is also his second season ending up on the waiver wire for Vancouver before the start of the regular season. While no one knows how things could go from here, the hope is that Patera’s second pre-season waivers stint isn’t as tumultuous as his first.
Last year, the Canucks sent Patera down to Abbotsford during the pre-season, needing to place him on waivers in order to do so. The Boston Bruins, who’d been having difficulties trying to navigate their goaltending situation as they were negotiating the terms of a new deal with starting goaltender Jeremy Swayman, claimed Patera from the Canucks to remedy any potential issues.
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Only a couple of days later, Boston resolved their issues by signing Swayman to an eight-year, $8.25M AAV contract. This gave them the freedom to send Patera down to their AHL affiliate, the Providence Bruins. But doing so would require putting Patera on waivers.
With Patera back on waivers, the Canucks made their claim, re-acquiring the goaltender they’d lost only a few days ago and retaining him as a part of their AHL core for that season. Now, Patera is back on waivers, and plenty of NHL teams are in a situation where they should search for more goaltending depth. Only time will tell where Patera ends up this year.
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