The goaltending of the Pittsburgh Penguins needs to turn it around down in final few games of the season.

With just five games remaining, the Pittsburgh Penguins sit in the second wild card spot with 86 points. They leapfrogged the Florida Panthers and sit one point behind the New York Islanders. One of these three teams will not make the playoffs after a dogfight to the finish. It will certainly be a disappointment for that one unfortunate team.

Many things have gone awry for the Penguins this season but paramount among them has been the play of their goaltending tandem.

Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith haven’t been good this season. There’s no hiding that fact.

Jarry has been out for long stretches of the season. When he has been healthy, he’s been very subpar in a contract year. That won’t help his case. DeSmith hasn’t been great in Jarry’s stead. When he does play, he’s been either very good or very bad with no in between.

Much of the blame can be placed on general manager Ron Hextall for his roster choices. Jarry was virtually unavailable for the playoff series against the New York Rangers last season. DeSmith got hurt in game one and had been mostly average prior to that last season.

Hextall deemed it prudent to keep Jarry around and re-sign DeSmith to a two-year deal at $1.8 million a season. It was a wild move to head into this season with the same exact goaltending duo.

However, here we are. There’s no use grinding on it now.

The Penguins are 4-6-0 in their last ten games. They’ve been as streaky as any other team in the league to this point both on the winning and losing side. A lot of that can be chalked up to goaltending.

However, the Penguins’ goaltenders have performed a bit better over the past week or so.

Jarry has a 2.03 goals against average and a .935 save percentage with a shutout in his last three games. DeSmith has won two of his last three outings, making 33 saves in the win over Washington and 34 saves on Sunday in Pittsburgh.

If there is anything that’s going to get the Penguins into one of the two available playoff spots, it’s going to be the play of their goaltenders.

Hextall has made his fair share of other mind-boggling moves. The Mikael Granlund trade comes to mind. The money allocation to guys like Kasperi Kapanen, Brock McGinn, and Jeff Carter that have hamstrung the Penguins’ bottom-six can’t be absolved. But the lack of goaltending moves after the debacle last season is by far the top offense.

It’s not like Jarry is incapable of playing at a high level. He’s done it before just not for sustained periods of time. DeSmith has been good in spurts too. They’re both capable. But streaky goaltending is the exact opposite of what the Penguins need to make the playoffs. They’ve got to be as good as they’ve been all year to finish the season.

Nevermind that any playoff appearance by the Penguins will see them play either the Boston Bruins or Carolina Hurricanes. They’d be the heaviest of underdogs in the entire playoffs. But extending the playoff appearance streak would be pretty cool.

Obviously winning a series is the obvious hurdle for the Penguins as they’ve lost four straight first-round series and five straight series overall. But that can be worried about upon clinching a playoff spot.

Doing so prior to the final game in Columbus would be the ideal situation. If that happens, it’ll be because the combination of Jarry and DeSmith played well enough to make that happen.

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