It was a year to forget for Tristan Jarry
Vitals
Player: Tristan Jarry
Born: April 29, 1995 (age 29 season)
Height: 6’2”
Weight: 195 pounds
Hometown: Surrey, BC, Canada
Catches: Left
Draft: Second round, 44th overall, in the 2013 NHL draft by the Pittsburgh Penguins
2024-25 Statistics: 36 appearances (35 starts), 16-12-6 record, .893 save percentage, 3.09 goals against average, 2 shutouts in the NHL….12 appearances 6-5-1 record, .908 save%, 2.67 GAA with AHL Wilkes-Barre
Contract Status: Jarry has three more seasons to go on a five-year contract that carries a $5,375,000 cap hit
Monthly Splits
March and April salvage this chart quite a bit, but boy it’s a sad, sad tale for Jarry in a season that featured two banishments to the AHL.
Story of the Season
Tristan Jarry got scored against on the first shot he saw in the 2024-25 season, yielding a goal to NYR’s Sam Carrick just 2:24 into the first game. (Ironically, there wasn’t much Jarry could do about that one, Carrick redirected a point shot from in tight). By the end of 20 minutes, the Rangers were up 3-0, and it could have been 4-0 if they didn’t get a goal disallowed for offsides that had nothing to do with the course of play. Unfortunately, Jarry could have done more on those instances and that would be a sign of things to come.
In fact, it was fitting to set the tone for his entire season: it wasn’t pretty and some of it wasn’t even Jarry’s fault due to poor defensive play in front of him, but he also was unable to do much about it either.
By the end of October, the situation spiraled into Jarry being unplayable. His confidence was shot, his technique was leaky and the goals were flying in. The Penguins resorted to a fairly drastic step of sending the veteran away from the team while they were on a Western Canadian road trip (a double dagger since Jarry hails from that neck of the woods). They then announced he would be going to the AHL on a conditioning assignment on October 26th. This temporary loan — agreed to by the player — sent him to Wilkes-Barre for 14 days in an effort to serve as a reset.
His time in the AHL went really well, Jarry posted a 4-1 record and only allowed 11 total goals in five games which made for a 2.16 GAA and .936 save% over the course of his first assignment of the season to Wilkes. Unfortunately the reset didn’t quite work, Jarry gave up five goals to Columbus his first game back with Pittsburgh on Nov. 15th and he lost his first three games.
For a short time in between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it appeared Jarry might have turned a slight corner. He posted a 7-2-1 record, his individual stats weren’t impressive but the competition level was high in a stretch that included games against Florida, Toronto, Colorado, Montreal, Ottawa and New Jersey and Jarry was back to guiding the Pens to victories.
Unfortunately, Jarry’s season took another turn after the Christmas break, he came back allowing five goals to the Islanders in a loss on December 28th. Including that night, Jarry went 0-3-2 with a save percentage of games started of .884%.
The final straw for that point came on January 12th and 14th. The Pens played well in both games defensively, allowing 17 shots in each contest (the first against Tampa, the second against Seattle). In both games, despite the limited workload Jarry allowed three goals and Pittsburgh lost each game. Deflating for all, the Penguins waived what was their franchise goalie on January 15th.
It was my decision [to sign Jarry] within the first couple weeks of being here,” GM Kyle Dubas said. “That was a decision then, I also would say, with goaltenders in particular, you have to be careful about writing the obituary too quickly. Because we’ve seen a lot of guys in the League who have been able to come back — I think we talked about that a little bit when Tristan went down on the conditioning stint. It’s up to him to go down there and use it as a full reset, and if he does get through, we’ll go from there. I think it’d speak worse of me if it was a mistake and we prolonged it and continued to try to force it.”
Dubas’s words about “writing the obituary too quickly” also came true. Rookie Joel Blomqvist didn’t fare much better than Jarry and then got injured, leading to Jarry’s return to the NHL on March 2nd. Jarry would go onto stop 29 out of 30 shots in his latest return in a 3-1 win over the Wild on March 9th. Down the stretch he would put up an 8-4-2 record and post a save percentage of .904% along the way to finish out an unprecedented season on something of a positive note.
Regular season 5v5 advanced stats
Data via Natural Stat Trick and Moneypuck. Ranking is out of 60 goalies in the NHL who qualified by playing a minimum of 925 5v5 minutes.
Average goal distance: 18.1 feet (6th)
Shots against/60: 27.8 (22nd)
Saves/60: 25.0 (28th)
Save percentage: .900 (49th)
High-danger shots against/60: 7.2 (16th)
High-danger saves/60: 5.8 (18th)
High-danger save percentage: .810 (35th)
Goals Saved Above Expectation: -3.9 (44th)
The stats show Jarry was given a tough hand. It wasn’t easy to play in front of the Penguin defense this season, that disclaimer has to be given. But even accounting for team inputs, the GSAA numbers put him towards the bottom. Keeping the puck out of the net was a real struggle.
The sequencing of goals was a terrible factor that deserves mention as well. Jarry was victimized repeatedly giving up a goal on the first shot or within the first five shots of a game. Some of this was not his responsibility from poor play in front of him, but by virtue of being the man in the crease it is his burden to bear. You could almost set your watch on the Penguins falling down 1-0 early in games (and often by the first TV timeout at the whistle following the 13 minute mark), which made the team’s challenges, confidence and outlook all the more daunting.
Charts n’at
Via Advanced Hockey Stats and NHL Edge
This was the first season that Jarry was under his expected save% but it says something that his solid white line (of actual save%) has been steadily on the down-slope over the last three seasons. For whatever reason, it doesn’t take a graphical form to show that Jarry has become a shell of what he once was.
Questions to ponder
How do you even go on from a trainwreck like this? Jarry will have a new coach and perhaps as much of a new start as one can get, but GM Kyle Dubas made it clear that youngsters in Joel Blomqvist and Sergei Murashov will not be held back from competing for NHL jobs. If Jarry isn’t sharp in camp, how long is his leash? Would he be waived again? Do the Penguins seek a trade this summer while retaining salary or taking back a bad contract to clear the deck and start over? Can Jarry find a way to settle in and make 2024-25 a bad memory? No player on the team carries as many questions that have fewer answers known at the moment than Jarry does, they’re just about endless. The answers that he will (or won’t) find are as numerous as his contract..
Ideal 2025-26
Jarry puts in work this summer, comes into camp in great shape and spirits. Maybe there’s some new blueliners and a coach that can help insulate the goaltender. As a result, Jarry gets back to his 2019-22ish form where he was a regular participant at the NHL All-Star games (though there is none this year) but to that level of play. It may be tough to post a record with more wins than losses next season but if Jarry can steady his play and get the GSAA and save percentage stats that have been dropping off since 2022 back up, play in 50 or so games and regain trust that would be the ideal scenario to dream up for a redemption angle. (How realistic or likely such a scenario is, well, that’s a different story).
Bottom line
It’s hard to go much lower than being unclaimed on waivers and getting shipped down to the minor leagues at age-29 for a former NHL All-Star goalie, but that was how it went for Jarry. His hefty contract gives him the chance to stick around next year (barring a trade) but he’s got a lot of work to do to re-prove himself as a top NHL goalie again.