Dubas Says He Expects Jarry Back; ‘All Out Battle’ Coming
Pittsburgh Penguins fans expecting to get rid of goaltender Tristan Jarry might be in for some bad news.
Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas clarified his goaltending situation and areas he will target for improvement this summer when he joined hosts John Shannon and Darren Millard on their 100% Hockey podcast.
You can listen to the entire episode here.
The heavyweight hosts didn’t shy away from the important questions, though Dubas largely sidestepped them or tried to give answers you’ve heard before. However, later in the interview, he dropped his card and clarified Jarry’s status.
Cross off a buyout.
“Especially this year, it couldn’t have been easy on him to start with us, go down to (Wilkes-Barre) once, come back up, (then) back down to Wilkes full time before coming back again to Pittsburgh. Especially as a guy that’s been a two-time All-Star in the league (it wasn’t easy),” said Dubas. “And I think he’s handled it very well in terms of how he’s played this time back. So, we hope he can have a strong finish to the year and that can propel him into a great summer and a great start to next season.”
However, there are no guarantees that Jarry will be on the NHL roster. Dubas didn’t close the door on a potential trade, or if other situations arise, changing his thinking.
In Dubas’s plan, Jarry will have to earn his roster spot amongst the team’s plethora of goalies. Rookie Joel Blomqvist has had a couple of NHL stints this season. Filip Larsson, who is 26, has posted solid numbers in the AHL this season, his first back in North America since a seven-game run in the Detroit Red Wings organization in 2019-20. And the Penguins have the rising star- the increasingly touted prospect Sergie Murashov, who set an organization record by winning his first 11 AHL starts. Murashov is 11-1-0 with a .916 save percentage.
Plus Jarry and Alex Nedeljkovic at the NHL level.
The GM believes he has a handful of competent goalies, and next fall could be the biggest goaltending battle royal we’ve ever seen.
“So we’ll see where that all heads as we go into the summer, but my view of it is the five guys right now–with their play or with their history or their pedigree–have earned the right to come into camp for an all out battle for the position,” Dubas said. “But we still have a lot of hockey left here at both levels, and that’s a great opportunity for the guys to set themselves up well coming into next season.”
For most of their history, the Penguins have struggled to find two goalies, and now Dubas is prepared to toss an empty net between five goalies and see who wins.
Coach Mike Sullivan briefly kept three goalies (Jarry, Nedeljkovic, and Blomqvist) at the beginning of the season, which allowed Blomqvist to play in several games before heading to the WBS Penguins.
Dubas Improvements
It should come as no surprise that Dubas believes he needs to improve the left side of the Penguins’ defense, but it was a little bit of a surprise that he listed the defense behind adding centers.
Dubas feels the team needs to get better down the middle and on defense, where Owen Pickering will get a full shot to stick in the NHL. Pickering played 25 NHL games this season on multiple defensive pairings, including the top pair with Kris Letang, mostly to positive reviews before a little dip in his play led to him being reassigned to WBS.
After Dubas traded Marcus Pettersson to the Vancouver Canucks, the defense largely fell apart. Dubas will need to reconstruct it.
“Through internal competition, whether it’s the Pickering’s of the world–Is he ready to push for the rest of this year in Wilkes and into the playoffs with Wilkes and have that translated to a bigger job with us next year, that’s up to us to give him the pathway and on him to execute,” Dubas said. “But when we look at the cap space and the draft pick side of it, I think center and D are two areas that we have to add to improve the team.”
The left side of the Penguins’ blue line has been a work in progress for most of the season. Ryan Graves has some in and out of the lineup. Ryan Shea was injured before getting a longer run, and P.O Joseph is never more than a step or two away from Sullivan’s dog house.
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1. “ So, we hope he can have a strong finish to the year and that can propel him into a great summer and a great start to next season.”. Hope is not a strategy. Jarry has to go.
2. A need at center is no surprise to anyone who has watched the Pens this year. Malkin cant handle it. Does anyone think 15 goals and -22 is acceptable for the Pens 2C?
3. Biggest priorities are to FIRE SULLY, get REAL D Men, a 2C, and a scoring winger.
At least the right side of the D is good to go. Right?
Not at all.
been saying that of Geno for several years!
Struggled with goalies for most of their history? I guess Barrasso and Fleury were chump change.
He said having two goalies at the same time. Rarely have they had 2 goalies that are serviceable year after year.
Cmon, man! “Struggled to find TWO goalies…” Also, that there have been only two great goalies, though Barrasso’s window was quite small, over a nearly 60 year history also proves my point.
Fleury Murray seemed to work pretty good.
Wregget wasn’t bad and neither was Heron who just played on bad teams.
The defense has fallen apart all year, not much difference sine Pettersson left!
No to Jarry being on this team next year.
If there’s one thing about Dubas, it’s take anything he says with a grain of salt. He sometimes outright lies to avoid showing his hand. I still remember he said “Jeff Petry is a huge part of our team” then traded him a week later, and I feel like there’s a few other instances like that, I can’t remember off the top of my head.
Schenn.
Great point
At least he didn’t say POJ is a good option coming back like Dave suggested. That was awful
I did as well.
can the pens do better than POJ? yes. do the pens have better than POJ? no.
Pickering, Shea, Brunicke, Kolyachonok, Aho – all better than POJ
Thats why Pic is with the club now right?
Didn’t they challenge Jarry to have a great summer last year? Like he’s a 12-year old? Look where that got the Pens. I’ve seen enough of him. He needs to be gone.
I am a big believer in punctuation: Crosby is 1C. the defense sucks. jarry is a competent NHL goalie? EK is worth… something? here? let’s stick to the periods. Corsby is 1C. rust is RW1. everything and everyone else is a ?
Let’s be realistic. The rebuild has just started, it’s unlikely the team will see much improvement in the standings this time next year. The goal should be to get NHL experience for the young guys.
P.S. Sid is unlikely to get another Cup with this team.
I agree. Maybe if he hangs around long enough he will get to see a return to the playoffs.
Unless they get a trade, they are saddled with Jarry’s contract for a few more years.
What they need to do is move on from Ned, call up Blomqvist or Larsson, and let Murashov control WBS. From what I’ve seen Murashov is obviously the future, Larsson at least has NHL experience, but Blomqvist did not look good in the NHL this year.
Could just be rookie growing pains but the goalie logjam has become a massive problem.
Pickering and Brunicke are the closest and get mentioned the most but there several other guys that could help in a year or two. Pieniniemi and Harding are in the top 6 in scoring for defenseman in the OHL and Pietila and Laatsch could provide the “defensive defensemen” they have sorely lacked in recent years!
Yep, and Benstrom is the leading AHL scorer.
And you’re the leading dou$he!
Will Jarry screw the Pens part two? (jkg) – 2 points out of the 4th spot really bears some serious consideration. Going 500 these last games is a massive mistake.
I think he put center up so high because of age. He’s a few years away from losing both Sid and Geno. I wonder if there’s a possibility of seeing a Malkin resurgence if he had 2 REAL top 6 wingers. We’ll never see the 2017 Malkin again, but I think there’s enough left with the right guys.
Sullivan’s Doghouse? Really? PO Poser is such a joke that if I was Sullivan I would not even let him have nachos in the pressbox.
Honestly the commenters on here amaze me. Do you actually think a GM is going to get on a interview and say “well we sure hope someone will take a chance on Jarry and trade with us”? Seriously folks who get on here and bash the GM or the coach for what they say to these “journalists” (NOT) and think that is what they are actually thinking or planning really need to get a clue.