Madden Monday: There is no Penguins goalie debate, and Evgeni Malkin should not be suspended

Lately, the Pittsburgh Penguins have been struggling to string together wins. With only three victories in their last 10 games, two of the wins have been with Casey DeSmith in net.

Tristan Jarry, meanwhile, has lost five starts in a row and six of seven, and he hasn’t beaten a team in a playoff position since a playoff victory against the St. Louis Blues on St. Patrick’s Day.

Despite all that, in this week’s “Madden Monday” podcast, Mark Madden of 105.9 The X and TribLIVE isn’t of the opinion that a goalie controversy is on the horizon in Pittsburgh.

And he thinks that playing DeSmith a little more often down the stretch could be a useful plan, so long as it’s solely done with the intent of pacing Jarry — not force feeding a Murray-Fleury type of situation before the playoffs.

“He’s got to be the guy for the playoffs,” Madden said of Jarry. “I just think they have played him too many games. I would rotate Jarry and DeSmith every other game the rest of the season. Just to make sure if Jarry — if he does have any symptoms of burnout — shakes it to some degree.”

This season, Jarry has started 55 games, DeSmith 17.

“There’s no goalie controversy. What (DeSmith) would have to do to challenge Jarry for the No. 1 job, is grow a couple inches. And I just don’t see that happening,” Madden joked. “(Jarry’s) numbers for the season still run pretty good. But I think he is tired, and I think he’s prone to bad goals, like that (Dmitry) Orlov goal that Washington scored Saturday. He should’ve put that in his back pocket. … I just think he needs to regroup a little bit. But I don’t know how that is possible between now and season’s end.”

Madden said it’s up to head coach Mike Sullivan to be smart and find places on the schedule to rest Jarry and play DeSmith. And he feels as if that load management approach could be applied to Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang as well, if the Penguins shore up their playoff positioning.

“Mike Sullivan always acts like the next game is the most important game. And on a team when your best players are older, you can’t approach it that way,” Madden said.

As for Malkin’s double minor high stick in the Nashville game, Madden isn’t buying into some of the scuttlebutt put forth on the TNT broadcast about a potential suspension of anywhere from three to 10 games.

“I don’t think he is going to get suspended at all,” Madden said. “To be honest, I’m glad he did it. At least he showed some life. He’s been terrible since he came back (from his knee injury). He’s been good on the power play. He’s a one-zone player and a power play specialist.”

In this week’s “Madden Monday” podcast, Madden and I also talk about the blowback Gil Brandt and Adam Scheft received in the wake of their commentary about Dwayne Haskins’ death. We talk about the Steelers safety position, the first week of Pirates baseball, Ke’Bryan Hayes’ contract, and those Western Pennsylvania college athletes who are trying to make it big with the WWE.

Listen: Tim Benz and Mark Madden talk Steelers, Penguins and Pirates