Vancouver Canucks extend qualifying offer to RFA goaltender Arturs Silovs

The Vancouver Canucks have tendered a qualifying offer to goaltender Arturs Silovs to retain his exclusive signing rights as a restricted free agent this offseason, the club announced Sunday afternoon.

 

Silovs, 23, posted a 3-0-1 record with an .881 save percentage in four games with the Canucks during the 2023-24 regular season. He proceeded to go 5-5 with an .898 record in 10 appearances in relief of an injured Thatcher Demko in the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Canucks did not tender qualifying offers to forward Aidan McDonough and defencemen Filip Johansson and Nick Cicek, putting them in position to become unrestricted free agents at 9:00 a.m. PT on Monday.

Silovs played an instrumental role in the Canucks reaching Round 2 of this year’s playoffs, posting a 28-save shutout in the deciding sixth game of their Western Conference quarterfinal series against the Nashville Predators back on May 1.

The Canucks originally selected Silovs in the sixth round (No. 156 overall) of the 2019 NHL Draft. The Riga, Latvia product played his draft-plus-one season with the OHL’s Barrie Colts before turning pro in the Canucks system in the 2020-21 season.

Silovs made his NHL debut with the Canucks in the 2022-23 season, the same year he established himself as an AHL regular with the Abbotsford Canucks. Over the last two seasons, Silovs has gone 42-23-11 with eight shutouts and a .908 save percentage in 78 AHL games with Abbotsford.

McDonough, 24, appeared in just six games with the Canucks (all in 2022-23) after a successful NCAA career at Northeastern University. The 2019 seventh-round pick spent the entire 2023-24 season in the AHL, collecting 19 points in 58 games.

Johansson, 24, signed with the Canucks in 2022 after the Minnesota Wild, who originally made him a first-round pick in 2018, let his exclusive signing rights lapse. The 6’1″ right-handed defender racked up five goals and 18 points in 55 games with Abbotsford in 2023-24.

Cicek, 24, came over from the San Jose Sharks organization midway through the 2023-24 season in exchange for forward Jack Studnicka (Vancouver also received a sixth-round pick in the deal). He managed 14 points in 49 games with Abbotsford after the trade.

Johansson and Cicek would have both had arbitration rights had the Canucks opted to tender them offers. Silovs, now the Canucks’ only RFA, does not have arbitration rights.