Pittsburgh Penguins Will Be Forced to Trade Goalie After Acquisition From Vancouver Yesterday

Silovs, who is mere weeks off of winning AHL playoff MVP, carrying the Abbotsford Canucks on his back to a Calder Cup win, is full of potential, and could be an incredible player for the Penguins.

The Latvian may only have 19 NHL regular season games played, but he was a true hero for the Vancouver Canucks in 2023-24, playing 10 playoff games, and giving the team a run to game seven of the second round against the eventual cup-finalist Edmonton Oilers.

Equally behind his belt is an IIHF World Championship MVP; it's safe to say that this kid is the real deal.

His acquisition, however, does not come without some pain for the Penguins. The team now has five goaltenders under NHL contracts; Silovs, the young and promising Joel Blomqvist, 2024 free agency signing Filip Larsson, 21-year-old Sergei Murashov, and, of course, two-time NHL all-star Tristan Jarry.

Silovs is a lock for the NHL; he is waiver-eligible as of next season, and deserves a spot in the show. Blomqvist showed a lot of potential in his 15 games with the Penguins last season, and it would be counter-intuitive to send him back to the AHL.

Murashov is among the Penguins' best prospects, and put up stellar numbers in both the ECHL and AHL last season as a 20-year-old; he is due for a bigger role.

This leaves two possibilities open to fill the AHL backup spot; the $775 thousand Larsson, or the $5.375 million Jarry. With the goalie market so thin, this seems to suggest that Tristan Jarry is on his way out of Pittsburgh.

Jarry has been on and off of the trade block for over a year, and was placed on waivers and assigned to the AHL last year. He may still hold value for many teams, however, even if GM Kyle Dubas has to retain salary.

We will see where this file goes, but the Penguins are known for their asset management, and this particular situation is not optimal.