The Pittsburgh Penguins have signed goaltender Tristan Jarry to a new contract. The deal comes just days before the draft and the start of free agency. The new contract will carry Jarry through the 2022-23 season with an annual cap hit of $3.5 million. The team announced the signing late Saturday morning.
The Penguins have re-signed goaltender Tristan Jarry to a three-year contract.
The contract will run through the 2022.23 season and carry an average annual value of $3.5 million.
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— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) October 3, 2020
Penguins Re-Sign Tristan Jarry
Jarry was the far more productive Pens goaltender in 2019-20. He outperformed Matt Murray by a wide margin with a .921 save percentage and 2.43 goals-against-average while playing only 70 fewer minutes over the course of the regular season. Jarry was also the better player in the playoffs with a .952 save percentage and 1.02 goals-against but the team leaned on Murray for three starts compared to Jarry’s one. The 24-year-old definitely earned this raise.
The Penguins drafted Jarry in the second round of the 2013 NHL Entry Draft and he has played in portions of the previous four seasons. His debut came in 2016-17 but wasn’t until 2017-18 that he really got tested in the NHL. That is the year he played in 26 games with a .908 save percentage and 2.77 goals-against. He spent almost the entire 2018-19 season in the AHL with Pittsburgh’s affiliate in Wilkes-Barre-Scranton before finally making the team full-time this past season. He now seems poised to be the team’s starter going into 2020-21 after this new deal.
What This Means for the Future
Jarry has done everything to seize the starting role. He is not the tallest goaltending option at just 6’2″ but that hasn’t prevented him from turning in good numbers in almost every season since leaving the Canadian junior ranks. It is likely that Jarry will start with veteran backup Casey DeSmith supporting him. If that is indeed Pittsburgh’s main duo for 2020-21, then Matt Murray should be a strong trade chip. The 26-year-old struggled last season but still has plenty of time in his career to recapture what made him a Calder Trophy candidate in 2016-17. It just probably won’t be as a Penguin.
Pittsburgh still has several decisions to make on players like Murray, Dominik Simon and Sam Lafferty. They have been one of the league’s busiest teams of the past few weeks and that will likely continue. Expect a trade or two to clear cap space as the team only has $2.6 million to spend with the new Jarry contract.
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