Canucks 1 – Predators 0 | His name is Arthurs Silovs

On one side, a 29-year-old goalkeeper who was taking part in his 23^e career playoff game. On the other, a young 23-year-old Cerberus who was only 12^e departure in the National League.

Juuse Saros and Arturs Silovs offered a thrilling goalkeeper duel on Friday in Nashville. Both men were the rock of their respective teams, but youth ultimately had the upper hand, narrowly, over experience: rookie Silovs was perfect and allowed the Vancouver Canucks to win by a score of 1-0 to eliminate the Predators in six games.

Silovs, who had the difficult task of defending the Canucks net for the third game in a row, blocked all 28 pucks that came his way.

The young Latvian, it should be remembered, is a choice of 6^e tour of the Canucks in 2019. If his name rings a bell, it’s that he played 10 games with the Trois-Rivières Lions, in the ECHL, in 2022. You read that right.

Two years later, he led Rick Tocchet’s squad to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs…

What he’s accomplishing now is all the more impressive given that he normally wouldn’t have played a single game, had it not been for Thatcher Demko’s injury early in the series, as he was the team’s third goalie. . It was Casey DeSmith who first replaced Demko for two games, until he was injured. Silovs was recalled as a reinforcement for match n^o 4, then Tocchet preferred him to DeSmith for the next two meetings.

Some doubted the coach’s decision Friday morning, but Silovs confounded the skeptics. Here he is shopping around for a new contract that is certainly more lucrative than his current agreement, which is ending.

Slow start

Nothing indicated, in the first half, that the goalkeepers would be the heroes of this match.

In the first 18 minutes, only two Canucks shots made it to Saros. The Predators players blocked 13 pucks in this first period alone, leaving very little space for the visitors to maneuver offensively.

On the other side of the ice, the Predators weren’t much more convincing offensively, although more aggressive. The young Silovs, always calm in front of his net, quickly stood out, notably by taking out his stick to spear Gustav Nyquist who was practically alone in front of him.

If the second period was more hectic, it was in the third period that we were finally treated to real playoff hockey. As if the two formations were waiting to run out of time before waking up.

“We’re playing good hockey, but we haven’t played our best hockey yet,” Rick Tocchet told the media on site in Nashville on Friday morning.

If the Canucks didn’t play their best hockey in the third period, they offered something close to it. Again and again, they came up against Saros. Nothing worked, until there was only 1 minute 39 seconds left on the clock.

With his work along the boards, Elias Pettersson got the puck behind the goal to Brock Boeser, who sent it to Pius Suter in front of the goal. Saros, left to his own devices, could do nothing about it.

The Predators goalkeeper still made 28 saves in the match, as many as his opponent.

An all-Canadian duel

The Canucks will therefore meet Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers, whom they have defeated four times in four meetings this season, in the second round. We will therefore be entitled to an all-Canadian duel.

Let’s hope that Rick Tocchet’s men have learned some lessons from this first round. In particular, the importance of finding a way to shoot the net. Before Friday’s game, they had shot just 92 times; this is the second lowest shooting total in the first five games of a series since 1960…

For the rest of the spring dance, they will greatly need their best offensive elements. Here, we think in particular of Elias Pettersson.

The 25-year-old forward has 34 goals and 89 points this season, but was not a shadow of himself against the Predators. Again on Friday, before he contributed to the winning goal, we saw little of him; he clearly lacks confidence at the moment.

Where the Canucks clearly don’t have to worry is in front of the net. Even if, we agree, a return of Thatcher Demko would not do any harm.