Pittsburgh Penguins goalie Tristan Jarry left the ice, pulled from a game for the first time this season. The New Jersey Devils had taken 19 shots against him in just over 33 minutes on Thursday night, and five pucks had flown into the back of the net.
It was the fifth time in seven games in which he had given up four goals or more. But the Penguins were quick to defend him.
“We gave up chances that you can’t afford to give up consistently. We didn’t give him a lot of help,” said captain Sidney Crosby.
“The first couple of goals, if Tristan did make the save, they’d be great saves. You can take that for what it’s worth,” said coach Mike Sullivan, who pulled Jarry. “It’s a tough one for me to evaluate. I just thought at the time our team needed a change. It wasn’t necessarily because I thought he was playing poorly.”
It was just a regular-season game, in an otherwise strong regular season for Jarry. But it was hard not to hear the echoes from the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs, when the Penguins went out in six games to the New York Islanders. Pittsburgh’s players and coaches had his back then, too, after Jarry finished with an .888 save percentage and gave up 16 goals in the final four games of that series.
“You win games as a team, you lose games as a team. It’s not any one position. It’s not any one person’s fault,” said Sullivan after Game 6.
But Jarry felt those losses. He took them personally. Friends, family and peers knew he needed support.
“I had old goalies reach out to me. New goalies. Just having staff [reach out], family and friends. It takes a whole village to help you through stuff like that. And it picks you up and helps you where you need to be better,” Jarry told ESPN recently. “I was able to get over it. I was able to be better from it.”
That Devils game wasn’t indicative of Jarry’s season; he’s been outstanding. Jarry is 25-11-6 in 42 appearances. According to Hockey Reference, 60% of his 40 starts have been quality starts. He has a .919 save percentage and a 2.38 goals-against average, both of which are improvements over last season. He’s sixth in goals saved above average (18.9) and has added over three wins to the Penguins, according to Evolving Hockey. He has three shutouts.
But, again, that’s the regular season. What about the playoffs? Are the Penguins confident that they’ll get the goalie they’ve seen for most of the regular season when the postseason arrives?
“You have to ask yourself what I did wrong, but also what didn’t I do wrong?” GM Ron Hextall, a former NHL netminder, told ESPN. “You learn from it. And then you gotta flush it.”
The Penguins drafted Jarry 44th overall in 2013. He played four seasons with the Edmonton Oil Kings of the WHL before reaching the AHL with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. In 2017-18 he played 26 games behind Matt Murray, sharing backup duties with Casey DeSmith (14 games). The following season saw him primarily play in the AHL again, but he was essentially the co-starter with Murray in 2019-20. Last season, with Murray now on the Ottawa Senators, he was the primary starter with DeSmith as his backup.
After last postseason, there was some talk that the Penguins might switch up their goaltending tandem — talk made all the louder by having Hextall as the general manager. But Hextall had confidence in Jarry and didn’t see a need to bring in a veteran goalie to challenge him.
“When the offseason hits, if you can improve at any position you’re going to look to improve at any position. But I didn’t feel the need to bring someone in to push Jars. That’s the coach’s job, his teammates’ job,” he said. “I didn’t feel like Jars was a guy that needed a push. Sometimes, guys work better in an environment where they know they’re the guy.”
Jarry said that Hextall’s support in the offseason — “just knowing that they’re behind me” — did wonders for his confidence entering 2021-22.
“We spoke a lot during the offseason. He’s been behind me 100%. There’s nothing more that you’d want than that. Just him having the confidence in you. I think that shows a lot,” he said.
Hextall won’t go into detail about what he told Jarry to boost his confidence.
“You know, I’ve been asked that a couple of times and I’ve never answered the question. When I have meetings with a player behind closed doors, they’re behind closed doors. But what I will say is that when you’re a goaltender, particularly a young goaltender, and you had a playoff series where you didn’t play up to your capabilities, you’re more the norm than the exception,” said Hextall, who played 93 games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs during his 13-season NHL career, including 26 of them in his rookie campaign with the Philadelphia Flyers.
“You look back, and there were plenty of goaltenders that had tough playoff series, whether they were young or mid-career. As a goaltender, you have to learn from it,” said Hextall. “He’s moved on.”
Jarry worked hard over the summer on fitness and technique. But he also worked on erasing the playoffs from his memory bank. “That was something that I wanted to get over as quick as possible. I had a lot of people helping me. Had a lot of people pushing me to be better. That’s what made me really want to have a good summer and come back and be better this year,” he said.
Hextall was impressed. “I can’t say enough about Jars and how he’s moved by it. He came into training camp on day one extremely focused on the job at hand,” he said.
In what’s seemingly been a recent annual tradition, the Penguins’ season was marred with significant players missing time from their lineup. Crosby has played 41 of the team’s 53 games. Bryan Rust has been limited to 31 games. Evgeni Malkin has played just 17 games.
Sullivan deserves the lion’s share of the credit for keeping the Penguins on track. But Jarry was also a stabilizing force. Only two goalies in the NHL this season have played more than Jarry: Juuse Saros of the Nashville Predators (2,548 minutes, 45 seconds) and Connor Hellebuyck of the Winnipeg Jets (2,546:52). In 42 appearances, Jarry has played 2,467:23.
His performance landed him in the NHL All-Star Game, where he was one of the best players in the midseason classic. While Philadelphia Flyers captain Claude Giroux won MVP honors, it was Jarry who made 14 saves on 15 shots in the championship game — including four point-blank saves to preserve the win over the Central Division.
Jarry’s profile got another boost recently when it was revealed that he had antagonized the NHL’s chief antagonist: Brad Marchand of the Boston Bruins.
In a Feb. 8 game in Boston, Jarry froze the puck to stop play with 25 seconds remaining in the third period. Marchand stepped around the referee to deliver what NHL commissioner Gary Bettman called an “unprovoked” gloved punch to Jarry’s head. A scrum ensued between the teams. As a linesman led Marchand away, he reached back and jabbed his stick at Jarry’s mask. Marchand was given a minor penalty for roughing and a match penalty for “deliberate attempt to injure.” He was later suspended six games by the NHL, which was reaffirmed by Bettman after Marchand appealed.
In that appeal ruling, it was revealed what Marchand claimed had prompted him to punch the Penguins goalie.
It was Jarry proclaiming “how about that f—ing save?” to Marchand.
“He’s definitely got some swagger,” said Hextall, who knows it when he sees it. “When you play the way he’s played this year, I don’t think you do that if you don’t have some swagger.”
When Jarry plays with confidence, he can be one of the NHL’s better goaltenders. Which is one reason the Penguins continue to have confidence in him. They’ve seen it before in pressure situations, like when he back-stopped the Oil Kings to the Memorial Cup in 2014. Hextall believes they can see it now, too.
“I’m confident that he learned from last year’s experience. He’s played in high-level games before,” said Hextall. “He’s handled that pressure. There’s not a lot of doubt in my mind that he’ll handle what comes his way.”