Have the Pittsburgh Penguins Considered Trading Tristan Jarry?
On the most recent edition of the 32 Thoughts Podcast, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet spoke with Kyle Bukauskas about the NHL goaltending situation and when Pittsburgh came into Toronto, Joel Blomqvist started over Tristan Jarry. Friedman stated that going back to last season, the Penguins were trying to move Jarry.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
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Elliotte Friedman: “The thing to me, that’s interesting about Jarry is he signed five times five before last season. And you know, you look at him last year, I think the Penguins have, at times, considered their options here, and so I think that has been going on where they’ve had him out there, or they’ve talked to other teams about him. I mean, obviously nothing has happened, but it’s occurred.
Jarry, he had six shutouts last year. That was one of the best numbers in the league, and he had a save percentage right around the league average. Those are good numbers. Like you look at the numbers and you say, I like that, but there’s an inconsistency to him.
He’s one of those guys. He gets hurt too. And, just by the fact I heard his name kind of talked about a bit, I think with the Penguins, it’s kind of like we like Jarry, but we want to see more. We want to see him be a bit more dependable. And that’s not putting him on waivers like they did with (Ville) Husso.
But to me, that was a little bit of, we don’t mind if he’s a little bit insecure about his position. We don’t want him to be comfortable in thinking I’m the guy. He has to make sure he keeps that designation. That’s what that said to me about what Sullivan was doing.”
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NHLRumors.com Note: All last off-season, all the talk was that Tristan Jarry was leaving Pittsburgh. He was out the door. Then he signed a five-year, $26.875 million contract with a $5.375 million cap hit. (Another five-by-five contract does not look good.) Jarry’s numbers have declined despite being the NHL shutout leader last season.
His inconsistent play has seen Casey DeSmith, Alex Nedeljkovic, and Joel Blomqvist take over the starting job in Pittsburgh. Jarry was a healthy scratch in the Penguins 6-3 loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Sunday. While Dubas and company want him to work on his game in the NHL, putting him on waivers and sending him to the minors might be the best option.
The option with trading Jarry is that he has a 12-team modified no-trade list. So, it might be tough to find a suitor. The Penguins are in a jam. If things continue to head in this direction, he could be a buyout candidate this summer.