Goalie shakeup before road trip
The Penguins are headed west this week for three games. They will have different goalies for the trip after the team has decided to send Joel Blomqvist back to the AHL and bring back the exiled Tristan Jarry.
The Penguins have recalled goaltender Tristan Jarry from the @WBSPenguins (AHL).
Goaltender Joel Blomqvist has been re-assigned to WBS. pic.twitter.com/LPH7p1cpc3
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) March 3, 2025
This move has more to do with Blomqvist than Jarry. The 23-year old has a 1-4-1 record with a 4.04 GAA and .854 save% since his January recall, at times looking overmatched in the top league. Blomqvist was much stronger in his first NHL stint back in October/November when he was the Penguins’ best choice at goalie for a while. That’s not the case now, so the team has elected to send him back to the minor leagues for more work and to regain confidence out of the spotlight.
For Jarry, today marks another twist in the bumpy road that has been the 2024-25 season for him. Jarry was soft demoted to Wilkes-Barre early in the season on a two-week long “conditioning assignment” before being outright waived in January. After clearing waivers he’s kept a strong upper lip and outwardly been in good spirits despite the difficult situation of seeing his career regress.
The move is interesting in the sense that Penguin management and coaching looked well over Jarry for his slumping play only a few weeks ago. Everyone has kept a diplomatic tact to say the right things, but it was clear through actions that the team was ready to turn the page on the mistake made in 2023 by giving Jarry a long-term contract. Now, he’s back.
Jarry’s return will give more intrigue to the stretch run. The goalie has three more seasons after this one on his contract that comes with a $5.375 million cap hit. It remains to be seen what kind of interest could be had with Jarry across the league, but this gives an opportunity for him to start to change the narrative and get his career back on track.
If not, the season is lost for the Pens anyways so it won’t hurt them. It became apparent that Blomqvist is not ready for a full-time role in the NHL at this point, so any other option would have sufficed. It just so happened that only reasonable option on the table at this point was to bring back the one-time franchise goalie.