The Pittsburgh Penguins placed two-time All-Star goalie Tristan Jarry on waivers Wednesday ahead of a crucial seven-game road trip that might decide the rest of their season because they had run out of patience waiting for him to recover from a slump.
This season, Jarry, 29, is 8-7-4 with a 3.32 goals against average and a.886 save percentage for Pittsburgh, which is barely in the Eastern Conference playoff picture because of poor goalie play.
Neither Jarry nor Alex Nedeljkovic have established themselves behind a defense that is prone to mistakes, and the Penguins have given up an NHL-high 173 goals.
Joel Blomqvist, a promising rookie, will be called up by the Penguins to accompany Nedeljkovic on the road trip, which begins in Buffalo on Friday. During a spell with Pittsburgh earlier in the season, Blomqvist finished 3-5 with a 3.60 goals against average and a.904 save percentage.
After he clears waivers, Jarry will be moved to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, the Penguins’ American Hockey League club, as it appears unlikely that a team would be willing to claim him and pay him.
Pittsburgh general manager Kyle Dubas stated on Wednesday that he currently believes it is best for the organization and Tristan to let Joel come up here in the long term. We believe that he has earned the opportunity to try it after his performance in Wilkes-Barre over the past year and a half and his time up here with us.
The decision was made eighteen months after Jarry signed a five-year contract for $5.375 million a year with Dubas. Although Jarry has struggled for the majority of the past two seasons, he was named an All-Star in 2020 and 2022.
According to Dubas, he has persisted in showing up and working hard, and there has never been any doubt about it. On the ice, that simply hasn’t happened the way we want it to. When you reach this stage, you have to act morally, both for him and for us.
Last spring, Jarry gave Nedeljkovic the starting position. Even though he returned to the top of the depth chart after training camp, he struggled right away and was sent to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton for a protracted conditioning period.
Jarry has lost five consecutive starts and still struggles early in games, despite a temporary improvement in his play upon his comeback. In Tuesday’s 4-2 loss to the Kraken, he let up a shorthanded goal on Seattle’s second attempt and has given up a goal on an opponent’s opening shot six times this season.
“This is the kind of thing that can happen when you lose,” Penguins captain Sidney Crosby stated on Wednesday. A goalie is already under a lot of strain, and it’s challenging for us because we feel accountable as a team if we don’t provide our goalies with adequate assistance on occasion. That’s the difficult part, in my opinion.
There’s a chance Jarry will return at some point, according to Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan, who criticized his team for defensive lapses in the third period against the Kraken that allowed Seattle to rally.
“If you don’t have a certain level of talent and you can’t make timely saves, I don’t think you make the All-Star team twice,” Sullivan said. I am aware that Tristan possesses it. I firmly believe that he is an NHL goalie.
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