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.