Food for Thought: Could Jarry Be Right Guy After All?

Hear us out. This is not an opinion column taking a side. It’s, well, food for thought on this Thanksgiving Day about Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry.

What if Jarry, a lightning rod for criticism for months if not years now, is a guy who can help lead the Penguins back to the playoffs this season? This seems like as good a time as any to put aside some of the bitterness and take an honest look at what his future might hold — beyond the immediate future, when he can be expected to start one of the Penguins’ back-to-back games, Friday at Boston or Saturday at home against Calgary.

Know that the team supports Jarry and sees in him this season a veteran who is putting in an admirable amount of time and energy to come out the other side of his … what? … funk?

Fans booed him as recently as Wednesday night when he was introduced as the starter for a home game against the Vancouver Canucks. Winger and long-time Jarry teammate Bryan Rust bristled Thursday after practice when the topic came up.

“All I will say about that is that it’s tremendously unfortunate,” Rust said.

“You can see when guys put in the work (including) him. Everybody in this (locker) room hasn’t had the season we would like, based on how we are and where we are in the standings.

“It’s unfortunate when our goalie kind of gets turned (against) by the fans.”

It’s unclear whether Jarry is a bust. Anyone who is healthy and has some strong points on his resume could rebound. Still, dissatisfaction with Jarry carries some justification.

His contract continues for three more seasons after this with a salary cap hit of $5.375 million and is viewed by many as an albatross around the Penguins’ collective neck, one that could make trading him highly difficult should the team look into that option.

And yes, he has struggled to regain the form that earlier in his career made him a two-time NHL All-Star – including being replaced down the stretch last season as the No. 1 by Alex Nedeljkovic when the Penguins made a run that almost got them into the playoffs.

Those are all valid points.

So are Jarry’s stats this season, 2-3-1 with a 4.34 goals-against average and an .868 save percentage, considerably worse than his career averages of 2.74 and .910.

His contract, and apparently a penchant for giving Jarry some time this season to try to get back to being a strong No. 1 goalie, have led to the Penguins sticking with him and Nedeljkovic as their goalie tandem, with highly promising rookie Joel Blomqvist back in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

At 29, Jarry is no struggling prospect. He should be in his prime.

Putting frustrations with Jarry aside for a moment, there are some points on the other side of the ledger.

His pedigree didn’t just disappear. He was selected in the second round, 44^th overall, in the 2013 draft, and his career numbers are good despite some rough times.

Coach Mike Sullivan and others have pointed out that he arrived for training camp in perhaps the best shape of his career. And Jarry agreed to go to Wilkes-Barre for two weeks to work on his game, and by all accounts he successfully did just that.

Since he returned to the NHL earlier this month, Jarry has allowed 15 goals in four starts. Wednesday in the Penguins’ 5-4 win over Vancouver, he allowed four goals on 33 shots and picked up his first NHL win since Oct. 14 – although PHN in its report card noted that only two of those goals against qualified as stoppable.

Asked afterward about the state of his game since his AHL stint, Jarry sounded pretty upbeat.

“Honestly, I think it’s better, but I still think there’s improvement to be made,” he said. “I think it’s still a work in progress, and I think I can get better every day. I think that’s something that you have to manage every game, and you have to be able to see where you can improve. (Wednesday) is another day where I can look at the game and find areas to improve on.”

Any specific areas?

“Not really,” Jarry said. “Just watching video and being able to find those.”

Jarry has never really opened up about the parts of his game he likes or the ones he needs to work on, whether it’s how he challenges shooters or his glove hand or anything else.

It’s not out of the realm that Jarry could improve in the coming weeks and months to the point he is solid enough to help the Penguins get back into the playoffs. He knows what it feels like to play well.

Of course, better team-wide play defensively in front of him, more consistent offense up and down the lineup and a moratorium on no-show games and games in which the Penguins (8-12-4, last in the Metropolitan Division) fritter away leads will need to be part of the equation that Jarry can’t do much about – although he does have a goalie goal on his resume.

If the Penguins can get back to the playoffs, we don’t really know what Jarry might bring.

The team has narrowly missed the postseason the past two seasons. The year before that, Jarry had a bad foot or ankle injury but stepped in and gutted out an obviously painful but impressive 26-save performance as the Penguins lost 4-3 in overtime to the New York Rangers in Game 7 of the first round.

Who knows how good he might have been if he had been healthy and played that whole series. After all, he was named to the NHL All-Star Game just a few months earlier.

The best sample of Jarry’s playoff performance came in 2021, when he got a fair amount of public blame as the Penguins lost to the New York Islanders in six games in the first round. He had an .888 save percentage over those six games.

He’s been through a lot since then. Perhaps he will find the best version of his game this season. Perhaps not. Perhaps the fans’ dissatisfaction with Jarry will prove justified. Perhaps he will prove them wrong. We really don’t know.

Just some food for thought.