Back in August, we wrote about players who had the most on the line individually in the 2025-26 season by identifying some situations where there was a lot on the line. In the last days of the Olympics, let’s circle back and check out how some of the ups and downs have gone.
Anthony Mantha — Mantha is the literal and immediate player with the most on the line this season for the Penguins, because he has up to $2 million in performance bonuses that he could achieve and nearly double his take-home pay. In that sense, no one has more to potentially gain from a big year. Beyond that, Mantha is at a crossroads now. He just turned 30. Arguably, teams have always been looking for that little bit extra out of him, whether it’s been a spark of intensity or consistency of effort to match his obvious skills and absolute ideal size. There’s also been some major bumps in the road for him lately, Mantha was traded to Vegas for the 2024 playoff run and played so poorly that he was made a healthy scratch. He followed that up by suffering a major knee injury at the beginning of last season with Calgary and has been out since November. At some point players run out of second chances, especially when they reach the point of being older than most of their peers. This probably won’t be Mantha’s last opportunity, but it could well be his last good one.
Perhaps no better encapsulates the surprising season as a whole for the Penguins as Anthony Mantha. Pittsburgh only gave him a one-year contract worth $2.5 million (with another $2.0m in performance bonuses) and Mantha has made good on that signing by producing 20 goals and 42 points in the season’s first 56 games. Tremendous value on that to dig up a player trending towards career-highs in all the major categories from basically the NHL’s bargain bin of free agency.
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Similar players signed last summer:
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Andrei Kuzmenko ($4.3m, one year, LA): 23 points in 51 games
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Gustav Nyquist ($3.25m, one year, WIN):0 goals, nine points in 39 games
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Patrick Kane ($3.0m, one year, $4m in potential bonuses DET): 32 points in 43 games
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Jeff Skinner ($3.0m, one year, SJ): 13 points in 32 games, contract terminated
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Brandon Saad ($2.0m, one year, VGK): 9 points in 39 games
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Reilly Smith ($2.0m, one year, VGK): 16 points in 53 games
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Corey Perry ($2.0m, one year, $2m in potential bonuses LA): 28 points in 45 games
Usually teams get what they pay for in terms of mid-level veteran forwards in that $2-4m range in free agency, which as you can see from above generally works out to be not that much to write home about. Mantha has well exceeded that level for the Pens this season. There were some bumps in the road — like the three points produced in 12 November games — but other than that Mantha has been an incredibly consistent performer and one of the team’s best players throughout the campaign. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are the only players on the team with more points than Mantha at this time.
For the Pens, this is the equivalent of hitting a $100 win on a penny slot, regardless of how much longer Mantha’s stint with Pittsburgh ends up lasting. Simply making it this far has been a major achievement and credit to him and the Pens’ management for bringing him in. Mantha has exceeded the most realistic of best case scenarios, it’s benefited the team this season and in one form or another it will certainly benefit the individual to get a career back on track.
Danton Heinen — On reddit, a user semi-jokingly came up with the most average of all NHL players (last year it was Drew O’Connor!) Danton Heinen would probably fit that bill more often than not. Heinen isn’t bad, but he isn’t really good….Not terribly much is expected from Heinen, but he’s in a contract year and probably at risk at falling out of the picture now that the Pens have signed players like Mantha and Brazeau. That’s usually where, against all odds and perhaps logic, that Heinen has been at his best with surprisingly effective performances. Does he have one more up his sleeve for this season?
The new additions for the Pens did end up forcing Heinen all the way down to the minor leagues, having gone unclaimed on waivers. The writing was on the wall that his time was short with the organization and was included to even out contracts in the Egor Chinakhov trade. Heinen gets a chance to catch on with Columbus (where he has three points in 13 games so far) and this one falls into the “break” area of make or break. Can’t all be winners.
Philip Tomasino — Tomasino went from a promising player showing some upside and production last season to one that also frustrated and confounded coaches with his all-around play and occasionally attention to detail…Tomasino could legitimately score 15-20 goals this season if he stayed healthy and played his way into being a part of the team, or it could go sideways and have a lot less of an impact than that. It’ll be a fascinating part of the story to watch unfold for how it goes for him.
Well, this one went sideways in a hurry. Tomasino never found footing in Pittsburgh this season and also ended up in the minor leagues. A trade soon followed, where his new team has yet to call him up to the NHL. This isn’t a player without skill, yet he seems to lack that certain indescribable ‘something’ needed to settle into a groove.
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In a lot of ways, Chinakhov could be seen as this year’s Tomasino for the Penguins: the former first round pick acquired at a discount to give a second chance to see if there was more growth. It looks like it worked out a lot better this year for results, though the underlying philosophy behind the moves make sense for a team like Pittsburgh that has more draft picks than anyone else in the NHL. Use some of those picks to see what can come from it. The Pens went down that road with Tomasino as far as they needed to go, then weren’t dissuaded by that end result to try it again with Chinakhov.
Matt Dumba — …Dumba hasn’t actually helped an NHL team in quite some time, and the Pens will be his fourth stop since just the start of the 2023-24 season. Still, at age-31, does Dumba have anything left in the tank that can help an NHL team? The answer has been trending to “no” for a while now, but as a right shot defender with the ability to shoot the puck and play with an edge, you might as well give the benefit of the doubt to see what kind of redemption arc may play out. It’s been several years and defensive staffs ago since Pittsburgh was known as a place to give a mid-career boost to struggling defenders, and maybe that magic is dried up…But it’s worth watching to see if Dumba can play his way into any value with the Pens this year.
The Pens saw enough of Dumba to reach the conclusion that other teams have – he’s not NHL quality any longer. The purpose of adding Dumba was truly always more about the second round draft pick attached to the trade more than a realistic hope of a reclamation. Pittsburgh gave it a shot, it didn’t quite work out and now Dumba is also off the NHL roster.
Arturs Silovs — Silovs is a goalie, so of course his level of play has been all over the place. He hasn’t been great in the NHL — except when he admirably performed well for the Canucks in the 2024 playoffs with a 5-5 record (which is more than Jarry’s two career NHL playoff wins). Silovs is coming off a fantastic performance in the AHL playoffs. Which, yeah, it’s the AHL and not NHL but can that be a launching point for an NHL career? There’s a lot for him to prove, but it’s at least a fresh gamble for the Pens to try and take, and they weren’t getting that good of performances out of the most recent backup goalie in the first place, so hey, why not? At this time in about ten months, Silovs might be free to the wind as a free agent that didn’t do much to establish himself, or he could be a semi-entrenched member of the Pens for 2026 if it goes well. The range of possibilities is very intriguing.
Silovs has worked out to be that fresh gamble. It must be remembered he is technically still an NHL rookie, yet he will likely lead the Penguins in appearances in net this season. His statistical profile (.895 save%, -1.6 GSAA, 2.89 GAA) is decent but far from impressive. At times he’s been strong, at other times he’s looked like a mid-level player. For someone who was unestablished in the NHL (26 of his 45 NHL appearances have come in these last four months), it’s been a slow process to get on the map, yet he’s starting to make a name for himself.
The future now in net remains just as alluring and seemingly as up in the air. Removing Tristan Jarry’s contract via a trade opens the situation up for the future. Silovs is a nice chip for the Pens to have on hand — other teams are always searching for an extra competent goalie. Silovs doesn’t appear to have an extremely high ceiling as an NHL starter but has shown he’s capable enough to belong, which will give him value in some respect, though it’s difficult now to see what the path ahead will be. The Pens have to decide what (if anything) they are going to do with impending free agent Stuart Skinner. Sergei Murashov continues to push his own development in a season where he made the AHL All-Star team as a 21-year old rookie. Joel Blomqvist is in a similar position as Silovs was a year ago in Vancouver buried on the organizational depth chart.
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Silovs might be the case so far where the jury is out on ‘make or break’ at this point. He sure hasn’t been broken by jumping to the NHL level full-time for the first time, at the same time he hasn’t exactly become a shoo-in as a piece that is guaranteed to stick around for a while. That said, it’s not a stretch that Silovs could yet become the top choice for playoff goalie in two months time. The varying paths in front of him still look about as wide open as they did at the start of the season.
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