Vancouver Canucks News

Home

Quizzes

Newsletter

Arturs Silovs, Vancouver Canucks (Bob Frid-Imagn Images)

Canucks May Regret Trading Arturs Silovs

Originally posted on The Hockey Writers
By Lukas Bernasiewicz | Last updated Aug 6, 2025 8:55 AM ET

On July 13, the Vancouver Canucks made a trade with the Pittsburgh Penguins, sending prospect goaltender Arturs Silovs to Pittsburgh in exchange for Chase Stillman and a 2027 fourth-round pick. Vancouver needed to make a move regarding their goaltending because they simply had too many NHL-calibre goalies. But trading away a young goaltender like Silovs could come back to haunt the Canucks since there are still plenty of questions regarding Thatcher Demko’s health.

Demko’s Injuries

Before trading Silovs to the Penguins, Vancouver had to choose a path with their goaltending and decided to hitch their wagon to Demko by giving him a three-year extension on July 1 at a cap hit of $8.5 million. After signing Demko, the writing was sadly on the wall for Silovs, as the Canucks now had their goaltending tandem of Demko and Kevin Lankinen locked up for the foreseeable future. This extension always confused me from the Canucks perspective. Demko is coming off a season in which he had to fight through injuries and relapses. He played in only 23 games last season, posting a save percentage of .889 and a record of 10-8-3. He was not at 100% all season long, and that was shown in his play. Now with this contract extension, the Canucks organization have hitched their wagon to Demko and given him a sizeable $3.5 million raise.

Demko’s injury history is a definite cause for concern, in my opinion. Not only did he struggle last season while on the ice, but he spent so much time off it recovering from an injury that he sustained in the 2024 Playoffs. At the start of training camp, he revealed that this injury was something that was so unique that the Canucks staff didn’t have much research on it. He said that to reporters in training camp last season, and the injury still held him back once the season began. There has still been no evidence that it won’t derail this upcoming season or any season after that. Now they have traded away a younger goalie in Silovs, who was ready to become a full-time NHL goaltender, and they decided to not only keep but extend one who is a massive question mark due to his inability to stay healthy.

Silovs Trade Could Haunt Vancouver

Trading a goalie of Silovs’ abilities could come back and haunt the Canucks. A talent like that always seems to find a new life in a new city, making the team that traded them away look foolish. Like Joni Mitchell’s famous song Yellow Taxi, “You don’t know what you got till it’s gone.” I fear something like that could happen with this trade. The Canucks got rid of a potential starting goaltender and were only able to get a mid/low-tier prospect and a fourth-round pick in 2027. On paper, that looks terrible for Vancouver. Silovs has the potential as the American Hockey League’s Playoff MVP to become the next great starting goaltender for the Penguins, and could make the Canucks look really silly with his play. Especially if Demko is still in and out of the lineup with injury, and they are forced to have an inexperienced goaltender like Nikita Tolopilo as their backup.

It’s obviously very early to determine who the winner of this deal will be, but I feel Canucks fans and management should be wary of a reality that could come from this trade. What could come from this trade is that Silovs goes to the Penguins and becomes a great starting goaltender for them, and finally fills the hole that they have needed since the new decade began. While Vancouver struggles to keep Demko healthy with whatever lower-body injury he has, and they are forced to bring an inexperienced goaltender from the minors to back up Lankinen and their goaltending becomes a major cause for concern.

The Canucks created a situation where they needed to trade Silovs, but I fear they created a bad situation. Based on past injury history with Demko and Silovs’ potential to be a starter in the NHL, they could be regretting this trade in relatively short order. We will just have to wait and see.