Josh Yohe wrote in The Athletic (Subscription Required) about some early-season observations with the Pittsburgh Penguins. After three games of the 2024-25 regular season, the biggest takeaway is that the Penguins are allowing Joel Blomqvist to become the starting netminder moving forward.
Consistent goaltending has been difficult to find in Pittsburgh over the last couple of years. The team didn’t foresee this being an issue when they committed to Tristan Jarry after the 2022-23 season with a five-year, $26.88MM contract. In the four years before that deal, Jarry had earned a 103-52-17 record with the Penguins from 2020 to 2023 with a .915 save percentage and a 2.62 goals-against average.
The contract didn’t look half bad for Pittsburgh in the first few months of the 2023-24 NHL season with Jarry putting up a .916 SV% by the end of the calendar year. Once the calendar flipped over to 2024; however, his performance went off the rails. Jarry finished the regular season on a run of 8-14-3 with a .891 SV% and lost the starting job to Alex Nedeljkovic down the stretch.
They brought back Nedeljkovic on an affordable two-year, $5MM contract but a preseason injury put the organization in a position to call up Blomqvist from their AHL affiliate in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Pittsburgh opted to start Jarry for their regular season opener and he quickly disappointed by allowing six goals on 40 shots in a blowout loss.
Pittsburgh pivoted to Blomqvist for their next game, this time against the Detroit Red Wings, where he won the first NHL start of his young career. The Uusikaarlepyy, Finland native stopped 29 of 32 shots against Detroit, and head coach Mike Sullivan stuck with him for their game against the Toronto Maple Leafs. He posted a repeat performance, stopping 29 of 32 shots, this time in a loss.
Yohe notes in his article that a contract similar to Jarry’s indicates the team will afford him more mistakes than usual but that will not be the case. The team is holding an open competition for the starting job and will likely ride the hot hand for much of the season.
Jarry and Graves are here to play, not to win. I know they take up more than 10% of our cap but we can find guys making minimum to do better. Sit them. Waive them. Whatever.
Blomqvist, for one. Shea or Aho or whoever, for another.
Should have waived Graves and kept Ludvig. COL will waive him again at some point, we should grab him back.
FWIW, Blomqvist has been OK, but it’s not like he’s Hedberg or Matt Murray or Lalime, who just took the job. He’s just been better than Jarry. Same as Ned last season.
Jarry has talent but lacks fire. The shooters wants it more. His backups want it more.
100% agree. Make any deal you can to give Graves and Jarry away. If that fails, waive them. Removing their cap hits alone is a win, but the point you touched on about them being here to play, not win is the key. Get rid of that mindset. I don’t even want them in Wilkes Barre passing that mindset onto others.
Someone should be dumb enough to bet on Jarry’s potential and give up a minor asset. If you find someone stupid enough to take Graves, make the deal and run away as fast as possible.
Blomqvist is too young to be starting but make no mistake he’s a very very good prospect. Goalie of the future whether he stays with the Pens or not. The future looks bleak but he’s only 22 so lots of time to go for JB.
No one is making a trade for either for multiple reasons. Also, waiving then doesn’t erase their full cap hits. There’s a chance jarry gets waived this year if he stays really bad, but don’t expect both and I wouldn’t put money on either.
Please leave Jarry in Montreal tonight. Trade him for some poutine.
Big extension for Jarry in 2023…
Extension for Ned this summer…
Now they are ready to hand the reigns to a kid they signed from Finland for almost league-minimum.
Heckuva front office Pittsburgh has there.
That’s pretty inaccurate. They aren’t handing it to anyone. Also, you better believe Ned would be starting if healthy
PIT had a starting goalie, but they “let him walk”. I believe his card says “R. Hextall”. Management might have been afraid he would start swinging the lumber to clear the flies out of the crease. That would get Kerry Fraser out of retirement and say, “Who do you think you are, Billy Smith?”