Three goals on five shots. Benched for a rookie halfway through the first period. Effectively broken with no signs of fixing.
This was the state of Tristan Jarry on October 16th. Penguins fans were quick to throw in the towel, and rightly so. Down the stretch of the 2023-24 season when every single detail needed to be perfect for the Penguins to eek into the playoffs, Jarry was far from it. Cries for his contract to be offloaded for a mid-round draft pick flew through Penguins fandom. He needed out. He was a liability.
But now we're about a week away from Christmas and something is identifiably different about the team as a whole. For a brief moment, the Penguins held the second Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference. It was short-lived, but that's not the point. The point is the Penguins are competitive again - against playoff caliber teams, no less. And why might that be?
Look no further than Tristan Jarry.
His first three games back after his time in the AHL were not smooth by any means, but he was at least keeping them in games. A loss in Columbus (where the Blue Jackets have been excellent this year), a painful blown lead and overtime loss to the Lightning, and a home loss to the Jets where he was under siege the whole game marked Jarry's return to the NHL. In those three losses, Jarry's save percentage was .892 - below that .900 mark that goalies like to achieve, but noticeably better than before he was sent down.
If you treat those games as a warm-up to the real challenge that was to come, Jarry did not breeze through it like the high schooler who gets hurt because he didn't stretch long enough before a game. Jarry came out sharp against some high-quality teams after the Thanksgiving holiday.
The 5-4 win against Vancouver was Jarry's first win in a month and a half. He gave up two goals in the 3rd period to make everyone's heart skip several beats, but he finished the job. Then, a 30-save one-hitter in Boston gave him back-to-back wins for the first time since late-January of last regular season. Follow that up with a grinding overtime win against Florida where he faced 41 shots and a masterful performance against a red hot Toronto team, the much-maligned Penguins netminder had a four-game winning streak - all against playoff-caliber teams.
Despite a rough loss at home to Colorado (which was a wholesale team loss), Jarry kept chugging on the road in Canada with a win over Montreal and a tight overtime loss to an Ottawa team coming off a 4-1-0 stretch. Loss aside, the game against Ottawa was perhaps the biggest teller of Tristan Jarry's resurgence. He was keeping them in the game with big saves.
Perhaps the biggest problem with Jarry's game over the last handful of seasons was his inability to make timely saves. Often the Penguins would score to either tie or take the lead, and the opposition would put one by Jarry not long after. For a team, the next shot or two you face after scoring a goal determines where the momentum is. Hockey is all about momentum. The Penguins fell victim to late comebacks almost weekly due to massive momentum shifts that came from a lack of timely saves.
Instead, now, Jarry is standing on his head and putting the team on his back in crucial, momentum determining moments in these games - a trait that Alex Nedeljkovic displayed in the mad dash for the playoffs last season. This trait is now allowing the Penguins to come from behind in games, something they've not been capable of doing for a while.
There's something about when Josh Getzoff yells, "Another HUGE stop by Jarry!" that gets the endorphins flowing. It may be a relatively short sample size, but things are looking up for number 35. Jarry's continued success seems to be a key in the Penguins turnaround, and they'll need plenty more of him in the coming months as the march to the playoffs continues. Consistency will tell the tale in the games to come.