Arturs Silovs arrived in Pittsburgh last summer as the Penguins looked for goaltending help, and he is now the reason they have a chance to keep their season alive Wednesday in Game 6 against the Flyers. After Stuart Skinner opened the postseason in net and then struggled in Game 3, Dan Muse turned to Silovs at the start of Game 4 and got a sharp answer.
Since then, Silovs has stopped 46 of 50 shots, posted a.920 save percentage over the last two games and allowed only four goals total. Only one of those goals came in the third period. For a team that fell behind 3-0 in the series and was staring at odds that have only been overcome four times in NHL history, that kind of steadiness has changed the tone of the series.
Rutherford knew what Pittsburgh was getting when it traded for the 25-year-old Latvia native. He said he did not want to lose Silovs when Vancouver had a surplus of goaltending, and he pointed to a goalie who likes playing in the big moments and can get hot and go on runs. That was part of the appeal after Silovs had already shown he could rise in pressure, with a strong World Championships performance a couple of years ago, an AHL championship last season and the run two years ago when he helped Rick Tocchet’s Canucks beat the Predators and force a Game 7 against Edmonton.
The harder question is why the version of Silovs playing now did not show up more often over the final month of the regular season. From the beginning of March through the end of the regular season, he had a save percentage above.900 only three times in 11 starts. That makes the current stretch more striking, not less, because he is winning games after a late-season run that offered little hint this kind of form was coming.
The flip side is that Pittsburgh is still living on the edge. Dan Vladar was fantastic in the first three games of the series, then allowed embarrassing goals in Games 4 and 5, with his glove hand appearing to be a problem. The Penguins have found their opening because the other side slipped, but Silovs has been the one keeping them in the fight. If Pittsburgh is going to force the series longer than the standings and history say it should, it will almost certainly need another night from the goalie it traded for last summer and trusted when the season was slipping away.
