It feels like this conversation has been had for the past few seasons with these two players, but it is still notable that it is the same two players year after year. It feels like nothing has changed and that these two players get the brunt of the criticism.
The players that are being mentioned here, are Erik Karlsson and Tristan Jarry. When the Penguins brought Karlsson to Pittsburgh, he was coming off of a 100-point season for the San Jose Sharks and the Penguins were hoping to get something close to that with them. As for Jarry, the Penguins had no choice but to give him a big contract with not great goaltending options in free agency. Both were big mistakes.
Defense is not optional Karlsson, it is part of your job
Night in and night out it seems like Karlsson thinks he can play only offense and jump up into every play and leave his defense partner or goalie out to dry. But that is not exactly how being a defenseman works.
A defenseman is supposed to play defense and at times he can jump into plays on offense and contribute there as well. But way too many times this season, he has not cared to play defense and let players go right around him or right by him.
Paul Cotter approaches the Penguins 1-3 setup at the blue line and breezes past EVERYONE as Erik Karlsson watched him go.
— Dan Kingerski (@TheDanKingerski) April 11, 2025
Brutal sequence for Penguins D-zone coverage.
This has not been and never will be defendable and the Penguins should do everything that they can to try to trade Karlsson in the offseason.
Jarry you are allowed to have more than one good stretch of games in a season
If you are a Penguins fan and have been watching every game the past few seasons, you have noticed that for the majority of the year Jarry has not played great, but he has sprinkled in a good stretch of games somewhere in that season.
It seems like he starts out bad, he gets benched for a good bit of games, he gets back in goal and plays good for like 4 or 5 games, and then goes back to his same old self of allowing everything to go past him.
That is not consistent enough and not defendable in the slightest. Penguins fans deserve better from Jarry in goal. You could argue that they need to change the goaltending coach, but you could also argue that Jarry needs to find his confidence, ideally somewhere else.
It is very difficult to watch him every game every season knowing you're going to get Jarry in good form very rarely or Jarry in bad form almost frequently. It is going to be difficult to get out of his contract, but if anyone can do it, it is Kyle Dubas.
tristan jarry should only be employed by the penguins next season if they’re committed to tanking for gavin mckenna pic.twitter.com/Svy38yKOrA
— matt (@yinzzzerr) March 28, 2025