While Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry is eligible to sign a contract extension at any point now, Tim Benz of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review argues that the window to do so is much narrower with GM Ron Hextall’s general hesitance to work on in-season extensions. The 27-year-old has one year left on his deal that carries a $3.5MM cap hit and coming off a season that saw him post a 2.42 GAA with a .919 SV% in 58 games, he has a strong case to add a couple million to his next AAV based on the contracts handed out to the top goalies in free agency earlier this week. With that in mind, Benz suggests that Pittsburgh’s best strategy might be to wait as with so much of their roster locked up long-term already, if the team wants to have any sort of roster flexibility at all, it might have to come from the goaltending position and locking up Jarry now would take away that option.
More from the Metropolitan:
- While the Rangers have nearly $5MM in cap space left per CapFriendly, they still have to re-sign RFA winger Kaapo Kakko and add a depth defender or two. Beyond that, Larry Brooks of the New York Post suggests that GM Chris Drury should be sitting on his remaining cap space rather than trying to find a way to add another piece this summer. New York didn’t need to rely on banking in-season cap space a year ago since they were well under the Upper Limit but that won’t be the case anymore. Accordingly, if they think they’re going to want to add a piece or two in-season, the only way to have a chance of doing that is to bank as much cap space as possible early on to create enough room for those additions closer to the trade deadline.
- Hurricanes GM Don Waddell told Luke DeCock of the Raleigh News & Observer that he expects prospect defenseman Scott Morrow to turn pro after next season. The 19-year-old was a second-round selection (40th overall) back in 2021 but played quite well at UMass in his freshman year, notching 13 goals and 20 assists in just 38 games. If he’s able to build on that performance in 2022-23, Waddell feels that Morrow would be reaching a point where there will be nothing left to work on in college even though he’d still have two years of eligibility left at that point.