The Vancouver Canucks are making a goaltending change ahead of their game tonight.
Head coach Rick Tocchet confirmed Arturs Silovs will be starting tonight per The Athletic’s Harman Dayal.
“It’s Arty’s turn tonight,” said the bench boss per the CanucksInsider account.
“It’s Arty’s turn tonight.”
-Rick Tocchet on Artūrs Šilovs starting tonight pic.twitter.com/vTNiCrv3xs
— Canucks Insider (@CanucksInsider) October 30, 2024
While Silovs was the opening night starter for the Canucks, he’s quickly been surpassed by Kevin Lankinen who has played the past five games, winning four of them and dropping the other in overtime.
Silovs has started just two games so far this year, both losses. The first was an overtime collapse against the Calgary Flames and the second a 4-1 defeat to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Tocchet hinted at this goalie switch when speaking to reporters on Monday morning.
“We’re getting Arty in here, whether it’s next game or whenever,” said the head coach at the start of the week.
“We gotta get him in. He deserves it. I thought his last start was pretty good. He wasn’t that bad. He’s done enough for us to know that he can be really good goalie for us. I don’t want to sit him on the bench too much longer, even though Lanks is on a roll.”
Silovs will have his work cut out for him tonight as his opponent, the New Jersey Devils, have plenty of offensive firepower. They rank ninth in the NHL in goals-per-game with 3.67.
So far this year Silovs has managed an .827% save percentage and a 4.50 goals-against-average. Those are not great numbers and he’ll be looking to improve on them tonight.
More to come…