Penguins Call Up Murashov, Send Silovs to WBS Ahead of Playoffs

A goaltender reassignment this close to the playoffs is never just a roster formality. Pittsburgh made that clear Saturday, calling up 21-year-old Sergei Murashov and sending Arturs Silovs down to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. The move simultaneously positions Murashov for a potential NHL playoff role and delivers a Calder Cup Playoff MVP directly into an AHL affiliate already locked into the postseason.

The Murashov call-up had been building for weeks. Pittsburgh general manager Kyle Dubas leaned on the Stuart Skinner-Silovs tandem through most of the regular season, but Murashov, a fourth-round pick (118th overall) from the 2022 Entry Draft, has been the most talked-about goaltending prospect in the organization. He earned AHL Goaltender of the Month honors in October with a 5-1 record in six starts, earned a spot on the 2026 AHL All-Star Classic roster and has been one of the more reliable young netminders in the league all season. A PensBurgh game preview published Friday noted that Pittsburgh was running out of regular-season runway to evaluate him for a playoff push. Pittsburgh stopped running and made the call.

Silovs, 24, arrives at WBS carrying postseason credentials that few AHL goaltenders can match. Acquired from the Vancouver Canucks last summer for forward Chase Stillman and a 2027 fourth-round pick, the Latvian netminder backstopped the Abbotsford Canucks to a Calder Cup championship, going 16-7 with a 2.01 goals-against average and a .931 save percentage across 24 playoff outings to earn Playoff MVP honors. His reassignment is not a demotion so much as a redirect: WBS has already clinched the 2026 Calder Cup Playoffs with a 38-16-6-2 record and 84 points, marking the franchise's 21st postseason appearance in 26 years, and head coach Kirk MacDonald now has a goaltender who has performed at exactly the moment this stretch demands.

For the Pittsburgh NHL club, the timing underscores intent. The Penguins held a three-point cushion for second place in the Metropolitan Division heading into the weekend, with a game in hand on their closest pursuers. Getting Murashov into a game before the regular season closes gives Pittsburgh's coaching staff a live read on whether the 21-year-old is ready to factor into a playoff rotation. The counterargument writes itself: Murashov has only a handful of NHL appearances, and playoff pressure is a different test than October starts in Wilkes-Barre. But Dubas and the Penguins clearly believe the evidence accumulated over a full AHL season warrants putting him in a position where he can answer that question directly.

Both organizations now enter the postseason with their goaltending sorted on purpose rather than by default.