Pittsburgh’s path back into the playoff mix runs through the crease, and the pressure is landing on Arturs Silovs.
The Penguins are coming off a season that ended with them second in the Metro, a sharp turn after a long stretch spent near the bottom of the division. Now they head into 2026-27 with a roster that has changed quite a bit over the summer. Andrei Kuzmenko and Nick Robertson are new faces in the forward group’s bottom six, while Trevor van Riemsdyk and Kaedan Korczak are in line to help fill out the blue line after some key depth departures.
But the biggest shift is in goal. Silovs, 25, is set to take on the most important role of all after Pittsburgh moved on from the veteran tandem that handled the net last season.
Silovs shared the crease for the full year, first with Tristan Jarry and then with Stuart Skinner after the trade that brought the two-time Cup finalist to Pittsburgh. Skinner got the early nod in the playoffs, before Silovs took over and nearly dragged the Penguins back from an 0-3 series hole. With Skinner now headed to Winnipeg, Pittsburgh is turning to Silovs and young Sergei Murashov to keep Sidney Crosby’s team in the postseason hunt.
It’s not hard to see why the obvious answers here would have been Crosby or Erik Karlsson. Either one would have made sense. If Pittsburgh doesn’t get top-end seasons from its best forward or its best defenseman, the ceiling stays pretty low.
Still, the Silovs pick makes plenty of sense. The veteran-goalie job that belonged to Jarry and then Skinner is gone, and last season that pair gave the Penguins real value.
Combined, they posted +13.92 goals saved above expected, with Jarry at 7.59 and Skinner at 6.33. Put those numbers together and the duo would have ranked 13th among NHL goalies.
Silovs was on the other end of that spectrum, finishing at -5.69, which placed him 75th among 89 NHL goalies. Murashov checked in at -1.66 in limited NHL work.
If that level holds, Pittsburgh is in trouble. The raw numbers only tell part of the story, though.
The Penguins leaned on their veteran goalies to come up with the kind of timely stop that can swing a game, and that was not as consistent from the younger group. Now the younger group is what’s left.
There is also the injury piece. After the season, word surfaced that Silovs had been dealing with a knee injury late in the year.
Even so, he still delivered three strong playoff games that helped keep Pittsburgh alive. That’s the version of Silovs the Penguins need now - the one who showed up in the playoffs with Vancouver and in flashes for Latvia on the international stage.
The challenge is not just finding that level. It’s holding it. Silovs has had trouble keeping the lows from getting too low, too often, and that matters even more now that Pittsburgh no longer has an established NHL starter waiting in the wings.
The Penguins are built to outscore problems, not grind out 2-1 or 3-2 wins. They want to pile up four or five goals and trust that the netminder can do enough to keep the night from slipping away.
They do not need a Vezina-level performance every game. They need someone who can steady things, steal a few moments, and keep them close until the offense takes over.
That’s the assignment for Silovs as the 1A goalie entering the season. He played 39 games last year, and there’s no sign Pittsburgh will suddenly ask for a massive jump in workload. But when he does play, the Penguins need a much better return than they got from him last season.
It doesn’t have to match the veteran combo’s 13th-place finish. It just has to be a lot closer to that than to 75th.
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