Chris
There isn’t much to distinguish Tristan Jarry from the rest of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ goaltenders.
At least cosmetically.
In the early days of training camp in Cranberry, Jarry has been sporting nearly all white pads.
Just like projected backup Alex Nedeljovic.
And reserve Magnus Hellberg.
And prospects Joel Blomqvist and Taylor Gauthier.
There are a few individual touches of black or yellow, but all are wearing white gear.
“Management,” said Jarry, who wore predominantly black equipment last season. “They want us to wear white. So we’re all wearing white.”
Jarry declined to get into the reasons for the edict from up top, though he did explain why his helmet now has images of monster trucks.
“The painter picked that,” Jarry said. “His little boy likes monster trucks. That’s what I went with.”
Penguins management opted to stick with Jarry this summer, signing him to a lengthy five-year contract that carries an ample salary cap hit of $5.375 million as well as a modified no-trade clause.
President of hockey operations Kyle Dubas extended that offer (and plenty of faith) to Jarry despite a carbuncle of a 2022-23 season that saw Jarry struggle with his health. An undisclosed injury he suffered during an outdoor game in Boston on Jan. 2 led to a difficult final three and a half months of the season when Jarry was regularly absent from the lineup because of a variety of ailments.
And, when he was on the ice, he was rarely completely healthy, leading to some lackluster performances in the final stretch culminating in the franchise missing the playoffs for the first time in 16 seasons.
In his final 23 games of 2022-23, Jarry had a 9-8-3 record, a 3.04 goals against average, an .899 save percentage and one shutout.
His maladies and his status as a pending unrestricted free agent weighed on him.
“It’s obviously hard playing when you have that burden on your shoulders with a lot of unknowns,” Jarry said. “To have that done and over with is nice. You can just focus on playing.”
There were various unconfirmed reports identifying the nature of Jarry’s injury last season. He declined to set the record straight on that matter Friday.
But he did acknowledge the overall uncertainty surrounding the organization — which did not have a head of hockey operations for approximately a month and a half this past offseason following the firing of former general manager Ron Hextall — was somewhat trying.
That’s to say he didn’t know who would be making the decision on whether or not to re-sign him until Dubas was hired as president of hockey operations June 1.
“Obviously, when you don’t have management, you can’t do anything,” Jarry said. “That was the biggest thing. I just had to wait. I had to see what was happening. They had to see what was happening. Nothing could have moved along until then.”
One of Dubas’ first actions in his role was to fly to Edmonton and meet Jarry, as well as his wife, Hannah. The purpose of the encounter wasn’t even to negotiate a contract. Just to simply meet Jarry face-to-face and get familiar with him.
“He was just doing his due diligence,” Jarry said. “He wanted to see what kind of person I was and what I was going to bring to the team. Obviously, he’s been on the other side of things for a long time. He just wanted to meet, kind of go over some things. Get a feel for what we have.”
On July 1, the first day of the free agent signing period, the Penguins signed Jarry to be their starting goaltender for the next half-decade.
That security and his improved health have been apparent to casual observers at training camp, as well as the people who know him best.
His teammates.
“You get a contract, you get healthy, I think that’s a big confidence boost,” captain Sidney Crosby said. “You can just focus on playing. It’s not easy when you’re going through all those things at the same time. Mentally, just to have a clean slate like that, especially as a goalie. There’s a lot of pressure. The more you can just clear your mind and focus on playing, the better. He was going through a lot with the injury and contract talks and all of that stuff. It’s good for him just to have that done with and focus on playing.”
It doesn’t take a great deal of focus to see Jarry has a new look in more ways than one.
“We’re hungry,” Jarry said. “Obviously, last (season), it didn’t turn out the way that we wanted. It was a shame. I wasn’t healthy. That was a big thing for me, was getting healthy. Getting back to where I wanted to be, to be at a level that I wanted to play at.
“You see with management and ownership, obviously we weren’t happy. There was a lot of changes. We’re going to be better for it.
