It’s been an unpredictable season for the Penguins in net
Mike Sullivan didn’t mince words yesterday after his team turned in a bad performance. One player was spared the wrath.
“Slow start? It was a slow game, period,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. “We had one guy. I thought our goaltender was terrific. The rest of it, it’s hard to find a positive.”
Shades of “Michel Therrien bashing everyone but Max Talbot” without the coach totally going off the rails with more the juicy soundbites, but that’s about as far as Sullivan tends to go with pointed public criticism.
The bigger focus might be that there even is a conversation to be had now about the future of Tristan Jarry.
Tristan Jarry was Pittsburgh’s best player tonight.
“I think since he’s come back, he looks different,” Mike Sullivan said. “He’s the semblance of the goaltender that’s played here for quite some time now and played really good hockey.”
— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) April 13, 2025
Sullivan’s right too. Jarry is 8-4-2 since coming back up from the AHL for a second time this season. The stats don’t pop off the page or give that much of a sense of how well he’s played (a 2.81 GAA and .904 save%) but Jarry has shown enough lately to believe he can play at a level a team can win with, because he’s been doing just that on a very regular basis. He hasn’t been perfect, but compared to his early season form, the difference is stark.
The question, of course, is how much of that can the Penguins believe in and how should they react?
Jarry still has three seasons after this year at a $5.375 million cap hit. That’s not the most onerous contract in the world, but moving a goalie with a decent-sized cap hit and some term can be a difficult proposition – just ask John Gibson who has been trying to get moved out of Anaheim for several years to no successful resolution.
Jarry has shown over a month stretch since coming back from the AHL in early March that he is not the completely broken goalie that he was earlier in this season. That doesn’t mean he’s magically fixed and ready for full trust like the past never happened, but if nothing else he has started along a path of redeeming his professional value and stature.
The question might come down to how desperate the Pens are for a fresh start with this whole saga, and what they are willing to do to facilitate a trade. Or, will they reluctantly or not take stock in the goalie of spring 2025 will come back and be ready for next season?
It’s a fascinating question to watch get answered over this off-season. It would almost certainly require the Pens to retain a chunk of Jarry’s salary and/or take back a similarly under-performing contract to make a deal. That alone requires some pause and restraint from Kyle Dubas and Pens’ management. Jarry has built up enough over the last 14 games where they don’t have to completely turn the page on him and prepare to bury him in the AHL next season right off the bat based off what the latest input has been from the goalie if they don’t feel it absolutely necessary.
While that thought holds value, the recent bounce might also make it a case of, if not selling high then at least “being able to sell when he wasn’t even a factor for that a few months ago” can certainly come into play too. Might have to move while the iron gets relatively hot if the team’s true objective is to turn the page and go in a new direction in net at this juncture. That wouldn’t be a total shock or unwarranted decision to reach either.
If the Pens continue in somewhat of a middle lane where they will trade away good players about to reach free agency but hold onto others that still offer value, deciding to keep Jarry for the start of next season holds some logic. They don’t need to make a brash move, particularly if their re-tool/rebuild/whatever you care to call the process right now isn’t prioritizing immediate contention. If Jarry’s able to be a decent NHL starter next year, great. If he fails and the team ends up in the lottery draft, it won’t be said out-loud but that’s not the end of the world or any great change from current status either.
There’s been so many twists and turns in the saga that anything and everything could be on the table. The Pens could deal with Jarry as he is, and turn to upgrading their goalie tandem by looking to bring in someone new. Dubas said he wouldn’t stop the progression of young goalies, but Joel Blomqvist didn’t look NHL quality at last glance and progression for a 21-year old Sergei Murashov in the near-term is finding a regular AHL spot, not being rushed to the big league.
They could always choose a different lane, too. Perhaps the future is better off by clearing the deck of Jarry to allow a fresh start. That path made a lot more sense 14 games ago but lingering doubts and an uneasy return doesn’t have to be set in stone either. Had Blomqvist not suffered injury and Nedeljkovic not faltered in the 2025 portion of this season, Jarry could well be stuck in his AHL purgatory at this time and not even enjoyed a mini-redemption arc at the end of this season.
How much stock the Pens choose to put into Jarry’s turn back to strong play at the end of this season will be one of the key talking points as they enter the summer. If nothing else, the goalie’s latest twist and upward turn gives them one more item to consider.
In a perfect world the answer of both for the last question would be best. But there’s a limit in time, cap space and assets, so in question is looking into the top priority and strategy to sink the majority of the efforts. Hopefully those options makes sense, if you have a different preferred scenario, please have at it below!