Last weekend the Penguins re-signed two restricted free agent goalies at the same time. Arturs Silovs got a one-year extension for $2.8 million, Joel Blomqvist got a two-year deal.<\/p>\n
The details within Blomqvist\u2019s salary are very interesting. It is a two-way contract in 2026-27 that has a $300k downside guaranteed salary, worth up to $850k if he spends the full season in the NHL. The contract suggests what many expect: that Blomqvist will be the organization\u2019s third string goalie next season and likely spend a lot of time in the AHL.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the second year of the deal that\u2019s interesting, it switches to a one-way contract that pays Blomqvist a $900k salary, regardless of whether or not he plays in the NHL or AHL level.<\/p>\n
The other interesting element is that Blomqvist loses waiver status at the start of the 2027-28 season. This deal could serve to make other teams less likely to claim Blomqvist, given the one-way contract. It also was likely a necessary carrot to dangle, lest the goalie return back to Sweden to play given that his NHL future has been delayed, which figures to only continue next season. Giving the money makes for incentive to stay in the organization instead of leaving.<\/p>\n
At this time, let\u2019s pivot back to Silovs. He\u2019ll be making $2.8 million in 2026-27 and is set to be a restricted free agent in the summer of 2027. Sergei Murashov is also set to become a RFA next summer, leaving Blomqvist (at his affordable $875k cap hit that is little above the minimum amount of $850k) as the only NHL caliber goalie in the organization currently under contract in 2027-28.<\/p>\n
The future of the Pens\u2019 goalie situation is dependent on next season, naturally enough, but there will be some decisions to make next summer where Silovs will be only one year out from UFA approaching for him in 2028 and seeing what kind of salary Murashov might prove he deserves coming off his entry level contract.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not difficult to see a path where if Silovs doesn\u2019t improve some metrics from last season – where his 5v5 save percentage ranked 43rd out of 52<\/a> goalies with 1200+ minutes and his GSAA was<\/a> 44\/52- that perhaps Pittsburgh doesn\u2019t qualify Silovs for 2027-28 and instead looks to elevate Blomqvist from No. 3 up to a full-time spot in the NHL as a cheaper option if it doesn\u2019t look like they are interested in making a market rate type of commitment for Silovs.<\/p>\n The situation could flip the other way, though few expect Murashov not to be impressive, if next season plays out to the point where he isn\u2019t an NHL option for 2027-28, the Pens are in perfect position to retain Silovs for 2027-28 and have Blomqvist right there should Murashov sputter through his rookie NHL season. Goalie paths can be volatile at best, no one really thought highly-regarded goalie prospects like Spencer Knight and Yaroslav Askarov would need AHL time a few years into their careers, but sometimes it happens that way. There\u2019s a lot of hope, and for valid reason, that Murashov will be a long-term factor in net for the Pens, but at this point that is still a path he is going to have to travel and prove.<\/p>\n Or, in the best of all worlds where Silovs AND Murashov both have strong seasons in 2026-27, the Pens would find themselves with quality depth and could be paying Blomqvist an NHL salary to play in the AHL as an insurance policy against injury in 2027-28.<\/p>\n There are as many variables in play as one\u2019s imagination allows, no one can predict the future when is comes to NHL goaltending performance from year-to-year so it\u2019s a curious detail that Blomqvist secured one-way money in 2027-28. Whether or not that portends to him drawing that salary as a full-time NHL goaltender in a couple years still is obviously way up in the air and almost entirely dependent on how he and the other two goalies play in 2026-27 with a wide array of extremely possible outcomes for all parties. Blomqvist\u2019s contract structure, especially seeing Silovs only sign for one year, serves to open up multiple possibilities for the mid-range outlook for how the Penguins might go about building their goaltending options, which at this point is a good position to be in and give ample ability to adjust based on how the future unfolds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last weekend the Penguins re-signed two restricted free agent goalies at the same time. Arturs Silovs got a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[257,385,99],"class_list":["post-754872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-general","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}