Drance: How Arturs Silovs’ NHL debut illuminated Canucks’ defensive deficiencies

VANCOUVER — The rookie goaltender bit hard on the fake.

In all alone, New York Rangers centre Mika Zibanejad — a player with a 40-goal season on his resume, who will likely add another in the next few weeks — kicked his leg.

It was a clever shot fake, and Vancouver Canucks goaltender Arturs Silovs, thrust into his first NHL game against a top-10 offense, bought what Zibanejad was selling.

He only bit for a moment, but that was all it took. The NHL is a cruel league, and the best finishers — Zibanejad among them — don’t need much space to do damage. The Rangers sniper slid the puck past Silovs.

First NHL period, first NHL goal against.

Silovs is only 21 years old. He’s extremely athletic and exceptionally talented. He’s also a favourite of Canucks goalie coach Ian Clark, who lobbied internally for the club to give Silovs a game in the latter stages of last season.

At Rogers Arena for the 2019 NHL Entry Draft, Clark — who plays a crucial role scouting netminders — was pounding the table for Silovs throughout that draft year. There’s an old draft-floor tale among Canucks front office hands, which contends that as every Canucks draft pick approached from the third round on, someone at the table got a text from Clark beseeching them to select Silovs.

In the sixth round, the Canucks finally did so.

Silovs’ development from sixth-round pick to making his first NHL start at the precocious age of 21 is wildly impressive. His debut wasn’t storybook Wednesday night, but that’s no surprise in a Canucks season wholly absent of good feeling.

Over the course of his first NHL game, Silovs allowed five goals against on 26 shots faced, picking up the loss.

Silovs was circumspect about the result. He said he hadn’t been nervous about debuting at the NHL level, and it was clear that he meant it.

He seemed conscious of the learning experience an NHL start offered him, even appreciative of the window into staring down NHL shooters that he received.

“It’s hard to say (what I learned),” Silovs said of what he took from the experience, “but you always have to get through that feeling and get that experience. So you can understand it better.

“Being more patient,” he noted of what he took away from the Zibenajad goal. “At this level you have to be really patient because these guys can do a lot of stuff and score some really creative goals.”

Silovs will be better for the experience, even if it’s odd that the club decided to start him Wednesday — against the high-octane Rangers — when the club faces the popgun offense of the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday night. Despite what the numbers suggest, despite biting for a Zibanejad fake or losing a K’Andre Miller point blast in traffic, the way Silovs battled and held up against the Rangers offensive attack wasn’t a setback — far from it.

If anything it further cemented him as the star pupil of Vancouver’s much-ballyhooed goalie development pipeline.

And after all, what can anyone expect from Canucks goaltenders when this team reliably surrenders multiple rush chances like the one that resulted in Chris Kreider’s 4-2 goal every single game? Or when turnovers like the one that led to Artemi Panarin’s 2-1 goal are as common as Blundstones on Main Street in February?

This team makes it too hard on their goaltenders. That was true for Silovs on Wednesday, just as it’s been true for Spencer Martin, Colin Delia and Thatcher Demko throughout this season.

Heck, it was even true last season, even if Demko’s deity-like form hid the magnitude of this club’s two-way issues.

Sitting on the New York Rangers bench wearing a ball cap Wednesday night, a testament to all of this, was last season’s Canucks backup, Jaroslav Halak.

The 37-year-old goaltender signed a one-year contract with the Canucks in the summer of 2021 but quickly played his way out of favour. The club couldn’t find a taker for him — despite their best efforts — at the 2022 NHL trade deadline.

After a run of losses in which the run support was non-existent, Halak struggled in the middle of his one Canucks season. In February he failed to make it out of the second period in two consecutive starts, causing the club to give up on him. They opted instead to ride Demko into the ground in the hopeless pursuit of a miracle playoff berth.

One year later, however, after a change of scenery as an unrestricted free agent, Halak is exceedingly reliable. He’s posted a well-above-average save percentage in his 15 starts behind a far more complete Rangers team.

It’s an instructive case to bear in mind, particularly as it pertains to the recent struggles of Martin and Delia. It’s also worthwhile context to remember as Demko prepares to return to action next week.

As good as Demko can be, it seems unreasonable to expect him to go from zero to 60 after 11 weeks off and regain his Vezina-quality 2021-22 form behind a team that defends like this. He might do it, he is a special goaltender, but we should keep our expectations realistic. As should the club.

On Wednesday night, Silovs debuted and the Canucks lost to the Rangers and Igor Sheshterkin. Fundamentally, however, goaltending wasn’t the difference.

And it’s unlikely to be until the Canucks are good enough and dedicated enough and move the puck responsibly enough to execute something remotely resembling a complete team game. Aside from one oft-cited game in Denver last season, that’s been beyond this group for years now, even if the goaltending excellence this club has customarily enjoyed has occasionally obscured that fact.

This season has been different, but make no mistake: The level of goaltending this club has played in front of hasn’t so much let this team down as it has turned the lights on. It’s illuminated how far this club has to travel to compete for anything meaningful going forward.

(Photo of the Rangers’ Chris Kreider scoring against Canucks goalie Arturs Silovs: Darryl Dyck / The Canadian Press via Associated Press)