It’s hard enough stopping high-flying rubber pucks for a living. For Thatcher Demko, the task was even more difficult during an injury-riddled 2024–25 season.
“I had no foundation physically when we figured out what was going on with the knee,” he explained during a media availability at the Vancouver Canucks’ 2025–26 Training Camp. “I didn’t have strength, I didn’t have range of motion, I didn’t have much going for me. So really dumbing things down from the beginning.”
Demko didn’t skate in his first game of last season until December 10. Throughout the rest of the year, the goaltender was sidelined twice due to injury, resulting in him only starting 23 of the team’s 82 games — a number he hasn’t gotten close to since the 2019–20 season. Ailments ranging from his popliteus injury to hip and knee issues prevented him from playing up to his usual expectations.
That’s not stopping him from proving himself as the Vezina finalist that many know him to be.
“Just being able to feel like myself again, run around the backyard with my son, just little things like that kind of spark a little fire in you,” he said, discussing the work he put in during the off-season. “As the summer continued, and I continued to see myself getting stronger, with tangible improvements and even intangible ones too, that confidence just grows, and you start to feel like yourself again. You start to feel like the guy that was here a few years ago, competing with the team.”
“Everyone knows how good he is,” Canucks centre Elias Pettersson said of Demko, who he has played with for nearly eight years. “We’re happy for him to be back.”
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Demko is part of a tight Canucks core that has bloomed within the organization since the goaltender was drafted back in 2014. The group of Demko, Pettersson, Brock Boeser, and Quinn Hughes has remained a part of the franchise since the four first stepped on the ice together in 2019. The experiences this group has faced, and will face moving forward, aren’t lost on the Canucks netminder — which helped lead him to signing a three-year extension with the team back in July.
“I’ve always wanted to be a Canuck,” he professed. “It was always pretty easy for me. The team knew where I stood on everything. I’ve always been a guy that wants to be part of the solution here. Through the turmoil that maybe we had last year as a group and individually, I still have been 100% committed.”
“I think he’s in a real good mindset,” Canucks head coach Adam Foote said of how Demko is approaching the 2025–26 season. “He’s trying to take on a more of a leadership role without overdoing it that would affect his game [ . . . ] I think he’s matured a lot over the summer with that part of it.”
Part of that maturity and leadership comes from facing adversity — which Demko did lots of last year. But armed with an off-season of training while healthy, as well as a new contract that takes him through to 2029, Demko is ready to reflect on the past while looking forward to the future.
“As much work as I put in on the physical side, I put just as much work in on the mental side too, just making sure that I was reminding myself who I am, and knowing that I’m still capable of doing the things that I know I can do.”
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