Canucks Add Meriläinen. The Crease Is Still a Problem.

Vancouver claimed 24-year-old Leevi Meriläinen off waivers from Ottawa on Thursday, the same day Filip Chytil went on injured reserve with a shoulder injury. Two moves, one direction: the roster is getting thinner up front and the organization is still patching the net with spare parts.

The Meriläinen pickup is worth watching. He's a young goaltender with NHL draft pedigree who Ottawa clearly valued enough to carry this long, and one coverage note called the claim potentially significant. That's a reasonable read. But the context here matters: Thatcher Demko is still not ready for training camp, Kevin Lankinen is the starter by necessity rather than design, and the crease depth behind him — Nikita Tolopilo, Chris Driedger on a tryout, now Meriläinen — is a collection of contingencies rather than a plan. The Canucks have been building this particular house of cards since mid-September, when I noted Lankinen was inheriting a job nobody intended to hand him.

Four days to Edmonton. The Chytil injury adds a forward hole on top of everything else, and the goaltending situation remains the most fragile part of this roster. Meriläinen is a reasonable waiver claim — low cost, some upside, fits the youth-movement framing Ryan Johnson and the Sedins have been selling all summer. Whether he's meaningful insurance or just another name on a crowded depth chart is a question that probably doesn't get answered until Demko's timeline clarifies. That timeline still hasn't.