Arturs Silovs is having an absolutely dominant postseason for the Abbotsford Canucks.
The 24-year-old goaltender leads the Calder Cup Playoffs in goals against average (1.61) and save percentage (.941) and has won 10 of his 14 starts to help carry the Canucks to the Western Conference Final, where they have a 2-0 lead on the Texas Stars.
On Saturday, Silovs posted his fifth shutout of the playoffs, stopping all 26 shots he faced in a tightly-contested 1-0 win.
Silovs is now one shutout away from the AHL record for the most shutouts in the Calder Cup Playoffs. Mika Noronen posted six shutouts in 2000 to set the record, carrying the Rochester Americans to the Final before succumbing to the Hartford Wolf Pack.
What could Silovs' run mean for the Canucks' goaltending situation?
This leads to a dilemma for the Vancouver Canucks. They already have two experienced goaltenders at the NHL level: Kevin Lankinen, who they just signed to five-year contract, and Thatcher Demko, who is a Vezina-caliber goaltender with a massive asterisk leading to a footnote reading, “when healthy.”
Demko is eligible for a contract extension starting July 1, but his struggles to stay healthy make it a potentially complicated negotiation for the Canucks and their All-Star netminder.
Silovs, meanwhile, will be eligible for waivers for the first time next season, meaning the Canucks won’t be able to send him down to the AHL with impunity. Instead, another team could claim Silovs off waivers for free if the Canucks decided to send him down.
So, what should the Canucks do? If Demko can stay healthy, he’s a bona fide game changer for the Canucks, but they’d also love to have some extra injury insurance beyond Lankinen. At the same time, losing Silovs for nothing on waivers would be less than ideal.
With the Canucks’ major needs at other positions, some have suggested trading Demko, but a goaltending tandem of Lankinen and Silovs seems risky.
After all, Silovs’ playoff run with Abbotsford isn’t exactly providing the Canucks with any new information. Silovs has shown that he can come up with clutch performances in big-game situations, such as his MVP performance for Latvia in the 2023 IIHF World Championship or his shutout win over the Nashville Predators to send the Canucks into the second round in the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Based on those performances, the Canucks went into the 2024-25 season under the assumption that Silovs was ready to be the Canucks’ backup goaltender, or even their starting goaltender while Demko was still recovering from his popliteus injury.
He wasn’t.
Silovs had a disastrous start to the season and quickly lost the starting job to Lankinen. Among the 73 goaltenders who appeared in at least ten games, Silovs’ .861 save percentage was ranked 72nd, better than only Cayden Primeau. His only two wins came against the woeful Chicago Blackhawks.
There’s the rub. As good as Silovs has been in the Calder Cup Playoffs, he has yet to prove he can perform with any consistency in the NHL.
In fact, Mika Noronen, the goaltender whose shutout record Silovs is chasing, provides some perspective for Silovs and the Canucks.
The cautionary tale of Mika Noronen
Noronen was much more highly regarded than Silovs as a prospect. He was a first-round pick of the Buffalo Sabres in 1997, the second goaltender drafted that year behind Roberto Luongo.
He was supposed to be the next great goaltender for the Sabres, taking the torch from Dominik Hasek. His outstanding performance as a 20-year-old in the 2000 Calder Cup Playoffs made his ascendance to the NHL seem like an inevitability.
There were just a few issues. One was that he could never quite translate his AHL dominance to the NHL, with his flashes of brilliance marred by inconsistent play.
The other two issues were named Martin Biron and Ryan Miller.
Noronen’s path to being the Sabres’ next number-one goaltender was blocked by two players who simply outperformed him, including a future Vezina Trophy winner in Miller. Not wanting to lose Noronen for nothing, the Sabres kept Noronen on the roster, running with three goaltenders.
As a result, Noronen barely played in the 2005-06 season, as Miller established himself as the starter. Noronen appeared in just four games for the Sabres when Miller was injured, and struggled with an .844 save percentage — not surprising given his lack of game action.
The Sabres’ decision to hang on to Noronen paid off, as Canucks general manager Dave Nonis paid them a second-round pick to take him off their hands, part of a disastrous 2006 trade deadline for Nonis. Noronen wasn’t much better in Vancouver than he was in Buffalo, giving up 10 goals on just 77 shots for an .870 save percentage in four appearances.
Noronen might have thought he’d at least get a fresh start in Vancouver and another chance to earn the number-one job. Instead, three months after he was acquired, Nonis pulled off a blockbuster deal to acquire the only goaltender drafted ahead of him in 1997: Roberto Luongo.
With that traded, Noronen’s opportunity to win the starting role was gone. Instead of sticking around as Luongo’s backup, Noronen refused to sign his qualifying offer and bolted to the KHL.
“I wasn’t going to play more than 20 games,” recalled Noronen years later to The Athletic. “My road was blocked to the NHL at the moment. I said ‘**** it’ and left for Russia. One year of that bull**** was enough.
“I needed a new start. I needed to play. I wanted to enjoy my life. I’m good at what I do, and I wanted to use what I had.”
Canucks should stay away from the three-headed goaltending monster
Noronen’s story is a cautionary tale for a couple of reasons.
First, Noronen shows that dominance in the AHL is no guarantee of success in the NHL. A lot of things have to go right to become an NHL regular as a goaltender: it takes proper development, the right opportunity, and a lot of hard work and, even then, not all goaltenders have what it takes to make that jump.
Second, it shows the risk of running with a three-headed monster on an NHL roster.
The Canucks could keep all three of Demko, Lankinen, and Silovs on their NHL roster. Silovs’ $850,000 cap hit would make it fairly easy from a salary cap perspective, but it would mean running a lean ship at other positions, with only enough room for two extra skaters: one at forward and one on defence.
The bigger issue is that only one goaltender can play at a time. The Canucks will already be looking for the ideal way to split starts between Demko and Lankinen; there wouldn’t be any room for a third goaltender in the mix apart from injury.
That’s exactly what happened to Noronen, as Miller took over the starting job and Biron was the backup. Even when Miller got injured, Biron got the bulk of the starts, with Noronen picking up the scraps.
“I suffered from it,” said Noronen to The Athletic. “This situation is not good for anyone, as a player or the organization.”
So, what’s the solution? Should the Canucks look to trade Silovs? Is it time to move on from Demko? Surely they wouldn’t trade Lankinen immediately after signing him to a five-year extension, right?
The Canucks might hope they could slip Silovs through waivers when no one is looking, like they did with Jacob Markstrom back in 2014. It probably wouldn’t work, but they could try.
But the example of Noronen shows that keeping all three goaltenders in the NHL probably isn’t their best option.
