Nikita Tolopilo was placed on waivers as Vancouver opens the regular season Tuesday at Edmonton, with Thatcher Demko still on injured reserve.
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The Vancouver Canucks placed goaltender Nikita Tolopilo on waivers Sunday, a move that signals they expect to keep the Finnish waiver pickup Leevi Meriläinen in the organization’s starting-season netminding group. If Tolopilo clears waivers without a claim, the team intends to assign him to its AHL affiliate, the Abbotsford Canucks, on Monday.
The waiver decision leaves Vancouver with its veteran starter Thatcher Demko still sidelined on injured reserve to begin the campaign. Demko, who is managing a hip injury, will begin the season without a set return timeline, and the team said he has been skating on his own but has not been practising with the club.
With Demko unavailable, the Canucks’ goaltending tandem at the start of the season is expected to be Kevin Lankinen and Meriläinen. Vancouver will open its regular season Tuesday with a road game against the Edmonton Oilers, followed by its home opener Thursday against the same opponent.
Vancouver acquired Meriläinen by winning him off waivers from the Ottawa Senators on Friday. The Canucks now have two active NHL-ready options behind Lankinen, and the Tolopilo waiver allows the organization to adjust its roster after making that earlier claim.
Tolopilo, 26, is now available to any NHL club during the waiver process. Should another team claim him, the Canucks would lose the option to send him to Abbotsford, reshaping their depth plan as the regular season begins.
The Canucks also placed other goaltenders on waivers earlier in the weekend and in the days that followed. On Sunday, Tolopilo was one of six goalies placed on waivers, while three were sent through waivers on Friday, including former Canucks farmhand Jiri Patera, along with Eric Comrie of the Sharks, who has 102 NHL games on his resume.
Tolopilo’s most recent NHL time came after Demko was shut down in January, when the veteran backup duties flowed to him and he finished last season with Vancouver. Across that stretch, Tolopilo went 6-11-2 with a 3.61 goals-against average and an .881 save percentage, posting results that reflected both difficult nights and sequences where Vancouver’s defensive structure left him facing extended pressure.
Before returning to the NHL, Tolopilo began last season with Abbotsford. In 19 AHL games with the Abbotsford Canucks, he posted an 8-8-3 record with a 3.07 goals-against average and an .897 save percentage. For the 2024-25 Calder Cup playoff run, Abbotsford went deeper, but the net was taken over by Artūrs Šilovs during the postseason.
During Tolopilo’s earlier AHL playoff involvement, he played just over 44 minutes across 24 postseason games as Abbotsford advanced to win the AHL championship. The start-of-season waiver move therefore comes after a full season of fluctuating roles between the farm team and emergency NHL duties.
Tolopilo signed with Vancouver originally as a free agent in March 2023, beginning his Canucks career after leaving HockeyAllsvenskan. He is a 6-foot-6, 229-pound native of Minsk, Belarus.
Meriläinen, the player expected to work in Vancouver’s net rotation, was 8-10-1 with a 3.51 goals-against average and an .860 save percentage in 20 games for Ottawa last season. He also recorded an 8-8-1 mark with a 2.77 goals-against average and a .909 save percentage in 19 games with the Senators’ AHL affiliate, the Belleville Senators.
Meriläinen is a 6-foot-3, 186-pound native of Oulu, Finland. The Canucks’ new goaltending option was a third-round pick by Ottawa in 2020.
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