Canucks' Silovs an unexpected frontman for all-Canadian series with Oilers

VANCOUVER — The Vancouver Canucks made rock music giants Pearl Jam move their stage after their Saturday night concert, partly so there would be ice available Sunday morning for Thatcher Demko as the goalie works his way back from a knee injury.

Pearl Jam, an icon from the grunge music scene that began a couple of hours south in Seattle in the 1990s, has a second sold-out show at Rogers Arena on Monday night. So the big stage will be back, occupied by lead vocalist Eddie Vedder and his bandmates.

But there is no bigger stage at Rogers Arena — or Canada — this week than the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the start of the Canucks’ second-round series against the Edmonton Oilers. 

Quiet, reserved and until recently largely anonymous outside Riga and Vancouver, Arturs Silovs will be the surprising frontman for the Canucks.

While Demko, a goaltending star, has practised a handful of times, largely in private, since he was hurt in the Canucks’ playoff-opener two weeks ago, Silovs’ every move or twitch will be under the blinding glare of Hockey Night in Canada.

The Canucks-Oilers playoff quarterfinal should be a massive spectacle in Canada, which has not produced a Stanley Cup winner since 1993 but is guaranteed to have one team in the Final Four later this month.

Three years ago, as a sixth-round draft pick out of Latvia, Silovs was so far down the Canucks’ organizational depth chart that his only game of the 2021 pandemic season was on loan with the American Hockey League’s Manitoba Moose.

Last week, the 23-year-old became the Canucks’ playoff starter after injuries to Demko and backup goalie Casey DeSmith. And on Friday, in the franchise’s biggest game in 13 years, Silovs posted a 28-save shutout as Vancouver beat the Nashville Predators 1-0 in Music City to advance to the Stanley Cup tournament’s second round.

You could write a song about Silovs. Somebody in Canucks Nation probably will.

“You just have to be always ready,” Silovs told reporters Sunday during a staged media availability away from ice at Rogers Arena. “A lot of things happen in life, like accidents, someone gets hurt, right? And you just have to be ready to embrace your moment.

“Like, every single day is a challenge, right? So you've got to embrace it. And that's how I do it day by day. Just stick to your game. Stick to the basics you do every single day, and just be confident.”

Silovs checked all three boxes against the Predators, starting the last half of the six-game series and finishing with two wins and a .938 save percentage.

With DeSmith healthy and coming off a superb 2-1 win in Game 3, giving the crease to Silovs, who had logged nine games in the NHL before these playoffs, was a massive decision by head coach Rick Tocchet and goaltending coach Ian Clark.

For Silovs, “You could just tell the moment is not too big,” Tocchet said after Game 6.

“I would say just his demeanour,” the head coach elaborated on Sunday. “He's the same way when. . . we named him to play as when he was backing up. I didn't see much of a difference. Sometimes you tell a guy he's playing. . . even as a forward or defenceman, guys get a little bit more intense. He's the same guy, like, whether he was a backup or a starter.”

Silovs seems unlikely to change now.

Assistant general manager Ryan Johnson, who oversees Vancouver’s minor-league team and player development, marvelled last season that Silovs barely reacted when Johnson called to tell him he was being called up to Canucks to make his NHL debut in February amid another injury crisis.

Given this life-changing news, Johnson said, many players start to yell and scream. Sometimes there is stunned silence at the other end of the phone, occasionally tears.

Silovs’ reaction?

“Okay, thanks.”

Asked if Silovs speaks in the dressing room, Canucks captain Quinn Hughes confirmed on Sunday, “no.”

“Clarkie's got him in a chokehold right now,” veteran centre J.T. Miller joked. “No, really, I don't see a whole lot of him. We say hi to each other — a little extra smiley since the incident with him — but. . . he just kind of goes about his business. I know he works really hard, and he's obviously learning a lot right now. This is an important time for him, and I'm sure he's feeling confident, feeling good about himself, which is really important.”

The ”incident,” of course, was Miller easing tension around the Canucks after the Predators won Game 5 by wearing Silovs’ salmon-coloured, paisley-emblazoned dress shirt as an outer layer over his equipment for practice on Thursday.

Silovs confirmed that Miller returned the shirt, and the goalie hasn’t decided if he will wear it again.

“You're bonding every single day more and more,” Silovs said of his new team. “Especially, like, when it's tough pressure moments. . . it's bonding even more. It's like everything, like, just comes together.”

Game 6 made Silovs a folk hero on the West Coast.

“I think for me, it’s like I just have to keep on my things, my game,” he said. “It's like outside noise. Like, it's nice to have it. But (you must) be so focused on doing your job.”

With Game 1 against the Oilers not until Tuesday or Wednesday, Tocchet wasn’t naming his starter on Sunday. But if it’s not Silovs over DeSmith, there could be another Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver. 

The quiet return to the ice last week of Demko, the Vezina Trophy finalist, is yet another interesting wrinkle in the Canucks’ goaltending drama.

“You always hope,” Tocchet said when asked if expects Demko to be available to play before the series is over. “The expect? I mean, things change day to day. But there has been improvement. To what extent? From my experience, it's a slow process (recovering from injury) and all of a sudden, two three days later. . . I really feel good. I don't know where that's at (in this case). It has improved, but to what percentage, I don't know.”

WORTH REPEATING

Tocchet on Oilers superstar Connor McDavid: “The one thing I really respect about Connor — obviously he's a great player. . .  probably one of the best players ever — is his work ethic. I mean, when you see him on the ice a half-hour before a practice working on his game with a skills coach. Or if there's an optional, he's on the ice. Or the way he trains. . . it's like Sidney Crosby, it's the (Nathan) MacKinnons, it's the (Cale) Makars. All these guys, they work their asses off. Connor McDavid is obsessed to be better. That's why I respect those guys; they're obsessed to be better.”