A lot of things have gone wrong for the Pittsburgh Penguins and Tristan Jarry is a main culprit.
Beginning a three-game road trip on Thursday, the Pittsburgh Penguins pulled out a much needed 6-4 win against the Minnesota Wild. The Penguins’ top-line went from being a minus-4 on Tuesday in their loss to the Maple Leafs to Sidney Crosby racking up four points alongside Jake Guentzel’s three.
Star players have a tendency to rise up and change the course of a season just like that.
Pittsburgh will be back on the ice Saturday night in Winnipeg and look to stack wins on top of each other and inch closer to a stretch that will see them play 11 of the next 17 games through the end of December at the friendly confines of PPG Paints Arena.
The Penguins are notoriously a team that starts slow to begin the season and this season is no exception. However, one noticeable difference is in the play of goaltender Tristan Jarry.
Last season, the Penguins’ slow start and oftentimes lackadaisical play were covered up by the stellar play of Jarry. The big saves were being made. So were the routine saves.
The same can’t be said so far this season.
Sure, the Penguins won by two goals but the first three goals are ones Jarry would like to have back. He couldn’t do much about the fourth but it was scored with six seconds left in the game and made Jarry’s stat line (19 saves on 23 shots) look that much uglier.
He’s now made 10 starts this season. His current stats: 5-3-2, 3.60 goals against average, .895 save percentage, and no shutouts. Those aren’t franchise goalie numbers.
Jarry has stated specifically that the only stat he cares about is wins and losses and that’s fair. But the wins aren’t going to come if he plays subpar. The Penguins just happened to turn it on tonight and score enough goals to cover up another mediocre performance from Jarry.
Heading into the game Thursday, Jarry ranked 65th out of 73 goalies with at least one game played in goals saved above expected with -4.3. It hasn’t been a pretty start.
Casey DeSmith was given three of the last four starts in the Penguins’ net. His play has improved a bit after a rocky start of his own. The team in front of him failed him Tuesday and the Penguins went back to Jarry for Thursday’s contest.
It’s clear that the Penguins aren’t going to get six goals each night. When they do, it would take a near disaster to lose that game. When they’re playing a tightly contested game and aren’t getting the saves, that’s when things get hairy.
Much of the Penguins’ problems have come in bunches. They’ll play a good period of hockey and the next twenty minutes will be filled with turnovers, mistakes, and leaky goals getting past their goaltender. Those things need to cease if the Penguins want to climb back into things.
Jarry is in a contract year. General manager Ron Hextall has maintained that he wants to get a deal done with Jarry despite the fact that they had some negotiations in the offseason that clearly didn’t come to fruition. He’s going to have to improve if he’s going to be the Penguins’ goalie of the future.
Right now, I’m not very sure he’d deserve an extension that would tie him to Pittsburgh long term.
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