After another long layoff, Tristan Jarry was back between the pipes for the Penguins on Saturday night against the New York Islanders at Nassau Coliseum.
A month into the season, Pittsburgh’s new No. 1 is still trying to find the form he had in the second half of 2019-20, when earned a spot in the All-Star Game.
Whether it was a week-long mental “reset” or COVID-19 concerns taking a couple of games off the slate over the past week, Jarry’s starts have been more sporadic than expected and the results so far not what the Penguins had hoped.
Saturday, Jarry allowed two late goals to the Islanders. And the Penguins lost, 4-3, despite getting a strong first 50 minutes from the whole team, the first NHL goal for Pierre-Olivier Joseph and Evgeni Malkin’s first 5-on-5 tally of the season.
Jarry, in his first start in nine days, got off to a shaky start on Long Island.
Midway through the first, Jordan Eberle charged down the left wing and caught Jarry leaning off his post. That was a mean backhand by Eberle. But from that depth and that angle, there shouldn’t have been any space for Eberle to target.
Later in the period, Eberle, a nemesis from that playoff sweep in 2019, slammed home a rebound after Jarry couldn’t squeeze the initial shot from the slot.
Jarry was better in the second period, turning away all 10 shots. He let another rebound leak out but redeemed himself by sprawling to get his glove on a Josh Bailey one-timer. He also stuffed Lee on a 2-on-1 later in the period.
Jarry’s timely saves kept the Penguins in the game. And Malkin scored with 15.2 seconds left in the period to pull them back even with the Islanders. He poked the puck away from Brock Nelson at the offensive blue line, took a pass from Kasperi Kapanen and fired a shot past countryman Semyon Varlamov.
It took 11 games for Malkin to score at 5-on-5. Perhaps that pretty goal will spark the big Russian, who had five points and a minus-3 rating entering the night.
The Penguins came out flying to start the third period and 3:19 in Jake Guentzel scored to give them a 3-2 lead. Sidney Crosby muscled his way out of the corner and flipped a backhand pass to Guentzel, who didn’t miss from the left dot.
But five minutes later, Jarry was fishing the puck out of the net after a breakdown. Casey Cizikas chased down a deep dump-in and slid a pass between a pair of Penguins defensemen to Cal Clutterbuck, who beat Jarry between the pads.
Late in the game, Teddy Blueger was penalized for flipping the puck over the glass from his defensive zone. The Islanders capitalized. Jarry got a chunk of Ryan Pulock’s point shot but the puck skittered through him and into the blue paint, where Anders Lee was waiting to whack it in the net for the game-winner.
Jarry finished the game with 22 saves. He has won just two of his seven starts.
Casey DeSmith started the previous two games. Then two home games this past week against the New Jersey Devils were postponed due to a COVID-19 outbreak among the Devils. Their game scheduled for Tuesday is now pushed back, too.
That means Saturday’s game on Long Island is the only one for the Penguins in a nine-day span. Not ideal for a new No. 1 goalie hoping to settle into a groove.
Prior to the game, coach Mike Sullivan acknowledged the stop-and-start nature of the first month of this season hasn’t been ideal for Jarry. But the downtime is giving the 25-year-old more practices to work closely with goalie coach Mike Buckley, making up for time lost due to training camp lasting only 10 days.
“It just is what it is and we’re going to react to it the right way, the best way we know how,” Sullivan said. “We’re going to try to use the time [between games] in the most productive way we can and prepare all of our players to be at their best, the goaltenders a part of that. It’s really not something we can control.”
Jarry left it all on the ice during and after Thursday’s practice at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex. That session ran about 70 minutes. He then stayed on to face more than 100 breakaways, so many that he could barely stand at the end.
“I think it’s just [about] getting better and making sure I had good practice habits,” he said after. “Making sure I was out working hard and just trying to stop every puck. That’s been my mindset every day for the last couple of years.”
Jarry got rocked in his first two starts in Philadelphia, getting yanked early in the second of those losses to the Flyers. Sullivan gave Jarry a breather and the next two starts to DeSmith. After a week off, Jarry steadied a bit in the next three starts. But Jan. 28, he was beaten four times on 20 shots in a loss in Boston.
Entering Saturday night’s game, his .859 save percentage ranked last among the 32 goalies who had started at least five games. Yes, even Matt Murray.
Joseph, the impressive rookie defenseman, scored his first NHL goal in the first period. The lanky lefty lugged the puck out of the defensive zone, dished it to Guentzel then followed him inside Islanders territory. After Guentzel gave him the puck back, Joseph snapped a shot into the upper right corner.
The captain, Crosby, quickly scooped the puck out of the net for Joseph before joining the three other Penguins skaters who had mobbed the 21-year-old.
Kris Letang and Mike Matheson returned to the Pittsburgh blue line, skating on the first and second pair, respectively. John Marino was in uniform, too, after he spent two days on the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol list and missed Thursday’s practice.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be a Penguins game without at least one injury worry. Winger Jared McCann suffered one during the first period and didn’t return.
The Penguins will next play Thursday, a road rematch with the Islanders.
