Canucks president Jim Rutherford discusses possibly trading away young goaltender

Unless Demko or Lankinen gets hurt, Silovs has no proven path to NHL minutes. To make matters more complicated, Silovs will no longer be waiver-exempt next season, so the Canucks can't simply send him to the AHL without the possibility of losing him for free.

That leaves them with only three options: trade a goalie, roster three, or roll the dice with waivers. Having three goalies doesn't usually work, especially with Silovs needing to start often to continue to develop.

Canucks management knows Silovs is the most likely to be traded

Dealing away either Demko or Lankinen seems doubtful, despite Demko's injury past and his no-movement clause not kicking in until next season. That leaves a Silovs trade as the most likely scenario. Canucks management seems to know this as well.

Asked about the goalie logjam, GM Patrik Allvin had little to say about Silovs, instead mentioning other budding prospects.

'We'll see,' said Allvin. 'I'm always looking for ways to improve our team and, if it makes sense and something comes available, then definitely we'll look into it.'

President Jim Rutherford was more forthcoming about possibly trading away Silovs but lacked an easy answer.

'We have some very, very good young goalies coming,' said Rutherford. 'Right now in our development camp, we've got Young and we've got Medvedev; those two guys are going to be very good NHL goalies someday.

'We've got things lined up here. Our plan going forward, right now, is to go with Demko and Lankinen. As well as Silovs played, he could be the odd guy out. He's not waiver exempt anymore. So, we're going to have to deal with that here in the offseason, but we feel very fortunate where we are with goaltenders.'

Unless something changes, Silovs' future seems like it will be in another NHL city.