‘Arty’s got that fight in him’: Silovs earning chants from Canucks fans for his big saves and feistiness

The crowd had already started chanting “Ar-ty” after the initial save, but you could really hear it echo through the arena on the second stop.

Fast forward to the beginning of the third period, when the Matej Blumel – the AHL regular season leading goal-scorer – comes in on a partial break. With Guillaume Brisebois trying to cut off the edge, Blumel lowered his body to protect the puck and gain inside positioning for a threatening shooting position.

However, Blumel didn’t account for Silovs being a threat to shut down that deke. Silovs notices the puck was loose on Blumel’s stick, and gets aggressive by poke-checking the puck off his stick and out of danger.

Silovs seemed to feed off the energy of the crowd, as he would not allow another puck behind him. Although it didn’t come without a little scare.

With three minutes remaining in the third period, Jonathan Lekkerimäki took a high-sticking penalty, sending the Stars to the power play for the first time in the game.

The Stars generated some chances with the man advantage, one coming when Kole Lind crashed the net…and Silovs didn’t like that.

Ty Mueller gives Lind a little cross-check in the back, knocking Lind in front of Silovs and pushing him into the net. While Lind was down, he and Silovs exchanged some shuves. The play was blown dead, and Silovs took exception by standing up and charging toward Lind, continuing their pushing match:

Silovs hasn’t been afraid of showing frustrations when he receives contact in his crease, but this exchange seemed to set Silovs over the edge.

He showed some emotion that he wanted to set the tone that he wasn’t going to get pushed around in this series. And his teammates were excited to see that:

“Arty’s got that fight in him,” Brisebois said. “He’s our rock back there. He’s really good since the beginning of the playoffs, so we’ve got to stick there with him.”

“It shows he’s engaged and that he’s competing,” Mueller said. “I think that’s something that’s super important.”

The overtime goal scorer, Christian Wolanin, shared the same sentiment, but mentioned it’s Silovs’ job to make saves, and their job to protect him:

“I like it when he makes saves; I like it when he’s the provincial hero that he is. He’s great in clutch moments. It’s probably our job to keep guys off the top of him. But if that’s what he’s feeling in the moment, I’m not going to get on him for showing a little emotion. He makes the big saves when it matters, and we’ll protect him.”

Of the remaining four goaltenders in the Calder Cup playoffs, Silovs has the most games played (13), yet still has the best goals against average (1.74) and the best save percentage (0.937). He has undoubtedly been the Canucks’ most valuable player this postseason.

Silovs and the Canucks will look to double their Western Conference Finals series lead before heading south to Texas on Saturday night in the Abbotsford Centre.