How much of the tracking stuff do you think is fixable and how much do you think is innate? I can see things that go wrong but I don't know any of the technical/teaching stuff in terms of how goalie coaches would go about trying to fix it.
I've had a somewhat schizy view of Silovs. I created his prospect thread after two AHL starts because it looked like he had something (and he does have something). After watching him more often in the AHL I became a little more skeptical of his potential, but when he's played in the NHL he's done better than I would've expected based on my opinion of his AHL play (good, not excellent). I still think he's more likely to become a backup than a competent starter but you know a lot more about goaltending than I do, so I gotta ask: what's your best guess of his future?
I think median outcome is decent starter who shits the bed in the playoffs.
If he fixes some of these things, I'd say top 10 goalie but not as good as Demko or Marky. Those guys have always been great at clear sighted non-screen shots. Talent gives you like 80% of this ability IMO. I just haven't seen evidence that Silovs is going to be as good.
He has excellent athleticism and his skating is good. He scrambles very very well but partly this is because he is a typical Clark draft pick - big body, good athleticism and then Clark puts in the technical base.
Another thing I think he has going for him is confidence and fearlessness. You can see he tries to rise to big stages in the playoffs and internationally. I don't think, however, that he is a particularly calm goalie. As I said, he is a good scrambler which is a huge skill IMO but he is like a lot of goalies like this who create those situations where they have to make a huge save because of a lack of rebound control or sloppy movement. His save selection is suspect at times. He can clean things up quite a bit with more technical work, which he was behind on when drafted and he lost development time in the pandemic.
You look at the things we see, yes he can work on them but he isn't a natural play reader. Honestly I don't think Demko is the greatest at it either, but Silovs's play reading potential is probably lower than Demko's. Just on pure tracking and play reading I think that limits his ceiling. And working on those things at the NHL level is just a lot harder. In some ways, the play is more predictable because the players are more disciplined but the speed of the play is much much fasters. We'll see if he can handle it.
Difference is that Silovs if he's a starter in the Tocchet era won't have to be nearly as good as Demko or Marky. So we could have quite a lot of success with him in net. Thing to watch out for is that young guys who are promoted too early and have clearly exploitable weaknesses often just struggle to keep their heads above water instead of improving at this top level.
