Heading into the 2025-26 season, Pittsburgh Penguins’ head coach said Dan Muse that he didn’t have a concrete plan for the goaltending split between Tristan Jarry and Arturs Silovs.
Of course, it’s early in the season, and both goaltenders have had some strong moments and some not-so-great ones. But one of the netminders is beginning to separate himself a bit, even if only in the slightest.
The 24-year-old Silovs was traded to Pittsburgh this summer from the Vancouver Canucks, and he was coming off a 2024-25 AHL season that ended with an astounding Calder Cup run and a playoff MVP award – a run that included a 16-7 record and .931 save percentage with five shutouts.
He also represented Team Latvia for two straight World Championships in 2022 and 2023, posting save percentages of .952 and .921, respectively. The 6-foot-4, 208-pound goaltender had struggled at the NHL level during the regular season prior to his Penguins’ stint, but he did help the Canucks during their playoff run in 2023-24, playing in 10 games despite what little NHL experience he had at that point – nine games, to be exact.
Now, he finds himself in a pretty decent spot for the Penguins so far. Silovs did suffer a pedestrian 6-1 loss to the New York Rangers on Oct. 11, but his other two starts have been impressive.
He earned the nod on opening night for the Penguins against the Rangers, and with 25 saves, he earned his first career NHL regular season shutout in a 3-0 win. Then, on Thursday against the Los Angeles Kings, he rebounded from a bit of a rocky start and stopped 30 of 32 Kings’ shots to help earn the Penguins a 4-2 win, even as there were stretches of play when he had to make a lot of tough saves in a short amount of time.
Canucks Artūrs Šilovs Named AHL Playoffs MVP
Abbotsford Canucks goaltender Artūrs Šilovs has been named MVP of the 2025 Calder Cup Playoffs. The 24-year-old became the first goaltender in over a decade to capture the Jack A. Butterfield Trophy, and now joins an exclusive list which includes Robin Lehner, Michal Neuvirth and Carey Price. Šilovs picked up 16 wins during the post-season, while five shutouts were one short of the all-time record for a single playoff run.
On the season so far, Silovs owns a .908 save percentage and a 2.67 goals-against average – and he only seems to be getting more comfortable between the pipes for Pittsburgh. The poise and confidence that Silovs has despite only 22 games of regular-season NHL experience isn’t something that comes so easily for young netminders.
And Muse believes his high-stakes experience – NHL or not – has a lot to do with that.
“He’s gained some really good experiences in his career so far, and he’s obviously still a relatively young guy,” Muse said. “I think those things, they seem to all kind of stack up. To have that run that he had last year, and then to have the playoffs before, and then you also look at some of the different experiences that he’s had in international play… you look at it and see he’s not that old. He’s got all these things already, and you own those now. You own those experiences, and you carry them with you.”
Artūrs Šilovs Shuts Out J.T. Miller And Carson Soucy In Battle Of Former Canucks To Start 2025–26 NHL Season
While the current Vancouver Canucks prepare for their season-opener on October 9, some former Canucks started their 2025–26 season off with a matchup against former teammates. In the second game of the NHL’s opening night, former Canuck Artūrs Šilovs and the Pittsburgh Penguins shut out J.T. Miller, Carson Soucy, and the New York Rangers by a score of 3–0. All three players started the 2024–25 season on Vancouver’s opening night roster and all ended up on different teams via trade.
Silovs has a track record of showing up in big games, but he has yet to find consistency on a regular basis. Should he be given the runway in Pittsburgh this season to prove he can?
Given the Penguins’ situation, there’s no reason he shouldn’t be given that runway.
Jarry, 30, has had some good moments so far in the young season as well. But – with 295 NHL games under his belt already – it’s safe to say that the Penguins already know what they’re getting in Jarry. He has a career .909 save percentage and is a two-time All-Star, but, unfortunately, he simply hasn’t been able to find enough consistency throughout his career.
Six years younger, Silovs never really got the runway to prove he could be a long-term solution for the Canucks, either. With Thatcher Demko and Kevin Lankinen in the picture, he was never going to have a long leash to be able to prove himself at the NHL level.
Now, he has a chance to do that in Pittsburgh. With the goaltending picture pretty much wide-open – and, potentially, a large piece of the Penguins’ future at the position in Sergei Murashov already putting up numbers this season in the AHL – Silovs has a head start on everyone else, including Murashov and Joel Blomqvist, who is on the shelf with a lowe-body injury.
The Penguins have already shown that they’re not afraid to take the necessary steps to make way for deserving youth on the roster – even if that means making difficult decisions with veterans. Therefore, Muse and the Penguins should give Silovs the reigns – at least for now – and afford him the opportunity to be a starting solution for the Penguins in Pittsburgh.
Only time will tell if he can continue to build on his success at the AHL and international levels. But the only way to find out is by giving him the games, and that’s exactly what the Penguins need to do.
Rookie Comes Through Shorthanded, Propels Penguins Past Kings, 3-2
Pittsburgh Penguins’ rookies have certainly been making their mark in the earlygoing of the 2025-26 season.
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