Penguins goaltender Arturs Silovs: 'I just want to seize it and do my best'

Watching Arturs Silovs warm up requires a bit of commitment.

When the Pittsburgh Penguins rookie goaltender takes to the ice, he engages in a lengthy and elaborate process to get ready for a practice session or morning skate.

First, he will slowly skate the length of the rink with gentle but purposeful strides while in something of a crouched butterfly stance, complete with his glove and blocker in proper position.

He’ll do that once, then skate the entire rink again in the same fashion, returning to his point of origin.

Then, he’ll repeat that process but in reverse. That’s to say he will literally skate backwards, swiveling his hips.

Finally, he concludes his preparation by skating in semicircles on one foot with no particular destination in mind before taking one of the creases.

It’s a very tranquil display. But Silovs professes it’s strictly for his physical benefit and not done for any kind of mental acuity.

“Get the body going,” Silovs said last week in Cranberry. “Get the muscles prepared for the practice. It’s good to have a little skate.

“Just listen to your whole body. Get that natural stance.”

His stance was sound during the Penguins’ season opener Tuesday as he made 25 saves to earn his first career regular-season shutout in a 3-0 road win against the New York Rangers.

In the process, Silovs joined rare company as he became the second goaltender in franchise history to record a shutout in a season opener. The iconic Marc-Andre Fleury did it twice in 2006 and 2013.

Silovs’ only other shutout at the NHL level came during a postseason game. As a member of the Vancouver Canucks, Silovs clinched a first-round series against the Nashville Predators in Game 6 by making 28 saves in a 1-0 win.

Current Penguins forward Tommy Novak was a member of that Predators squad.

“It was a little bit of a bad memory,” Novak guffawed. “I remember (Canucks starting goaltender Thatcher) Demko getting hurt and him (Silovs) stepping in, playing well. It was definitely a low-event series. But he played really well, got them the win.

“I just remember him stepping in, making big saves.”

That was also the case during the 2025 postseason in the American Hockey League.

Silovs won the Jack A. Butterfield Trophy as AHL postseason MVP after he led the Abbotsford Canucks to the Calder Cup. In 24 playoff games, he had a 16-7-0 record, a 2.01 goals-against average, a .931 save percentage and five shutouts.

Someone say the thing! ????@abbycanucks | @Canucks | @CanucksArmy#AHL #CalderCup #ProudlyAbbotsford #Canucks pic.twitter.com/ipwcmZ72kY

— FloHockey (@FloHockey) June 14, 2025

So why did the Vancouver Canucks feel the need to trade him to the Penguins on July 13?

With something of a logjam in net involving Demko as well as fellow NHLer Kevin Lankinen and Silovs now requiring waivers to be sent to a minor-league affiliate, Vancouver management felt that instead of potentially losing Silovs for nothing, the best course of action was to send him to the Penguins in exchange for a fourth-round draft pick in 2027 and mid-level forward prospect Chase Stillman.

“It’s a great thing for me, having an opportunity to play,” Silovs said. “It’s been tough rotating with the three goaltenders. Finally, it’s an opportunity to play in the NHL. I just want to seize it and do my best.”

Despite having already played parts of three seasons in the NHL, Silovs still registers as a rookie per the NHL’s definition of the designation. And despite being a rookie, he actually has the most career NHL playoff wins on the Penguins roster with a 5-5 record in 10 games. The embattled Tristan Jarry, entering his 10th NHL season, has a 2-6 record over eight postseason contests.

Yet, Silovs has not found a way to stick in the NHL consistently.

Even with a triumph such as Tuesday’s shutout, he understands the requirements to refine his craft are a constant if he is to remain in this league.

“It’s always adjusting your game,” said Silovs, 24. “Adjusting to the way other teams play. For a goaltender, I think it’s an adjustment game. It never ends. You try to build every single day, one day at a time.”

Enjoying any days in the NHL is something to celebrate for Silovs (pronounced SIH -lahvz). A sixth-round draft pick (No. 156 overall) of the Canucks in 2019, Silovs is a native of Latvia, a country that produced all of 29 NHL players in the first 107 years of the NHL.

To become part of that limited fraternity, Silovs came to North America in 2019 to play junior hockey for the Barrie Colts of the Ontario Hockey League. But his lone season at that level was disrupted by the pandemic, which halted just about everything on earth, including the OHL’s 2019-20 campaign.

While most hockey leagues in North America were in stasis during fall 2020 because of the pandemic, a few leagues in Europe tried to operate, including the low-level Latvian Hockey Higher League. Silovs got in a handful of games in that league with HS Riga and HK Mogo.

“You sit at home for a bit,” Silovs said. “You didn’t know what’s going to happen, if hockey is going to continue or not. It was tough just to get into it. Then I played one game in a six-month span. It was a hard year for me. But I just continued to grow as a player and as a person as well. Especially mentally.”

Silovs began his professional career in earnest during the 2021-22 season, bouncing around the Canucks’ minor-league affiliates, and by the 2024 playoffs, he made a name for himself by beating the Predators in the first round and then he nearly upset the powerful Edmonton Oilers in seven games during a second-round loss.

He embraces the unique pressure his position commands.

“Being the last guy for the team, so many things can happen,” Silovs said. “(Defensemen) can fall down. Just giving that safety net for the guys, I think that’s really important. On the bench, (teammates) say, ‘It’s a breakaway, he’s got this. No problem. He makes the save, we’re going to score.’

“I just look at that kind of mentality.”

Silovs is in the final year of a two-year contract with a salary cap hit of $850,000 and is a pending restricted free agent after this season. If he has a long-term future with the Penguins, that is anyone’s guess.

Jarry presumably wants to present an argument that he can still be the Penguins’ top goaltender, and prospects Joel Blomqvist and Sergei Murashov are highly intriguing future assets.

But Silovs has offered plenty of evidence to suggest he isn’t to be overlooked.

“He’s obviously capable of playing a really high level,” Novak said. “I’ve seen it firsthand.”