Penguins place goaltender Tristan Jarry on waivers

Following the first game of the second half of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ season, Tristan Jarry had a simple purpose in mind.

“Just keep being better,” Jarry said in the aftermath of a 4-3 shootout loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Jan. 7 at home. “We, obviously, need points. That has to be the mindset every game is to get points. Whether it’s winning those games in overtime or shootout or regulation, we need points.

“That’s going to be my goal for the rest of the season.”

Where Jarry chases that pursuit is anyone’s guess.

On Wednesday, the Penguins placed Jarry, their would-be franchise goaltender, on waivers.

Should he go unclaimed by the NHL’s other 31 franchises — all of whom are presumably not looking for a goaltender with a multi-million dollar salary cap hit and an abhorrent save percentage — Jarry will be assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League.

Regardless of the outcome, it’s an abysmal situation for Jarry and the Penguins.

Speaking with media after practice Wednesday in Cranberry, Penguins president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas indicated the team plans on recalling goaltending prospect Joel Blomqvist regardless of Jarry’s fate, which will be determined by 2 p.m. Thursday.

“Just feel it’s best in the long run for the team and for Tristan to allow Joel to come up here,” Dubas said. “We think over the past year and a half, with his play in Wilkes-Barre and when he’s been up here with us, he’s earned the right to have a go at it, and we get a chance to see what he can do in a prolonged look.”

The Penguins previously assigned Jarry — their primary starter for five seasons — to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in October for a two-week conditioning stint to repair his malfunctioning game. Dubas framed another potential assignment in the same fashion, albeit independent of any kind of defined time frame.

“There’s no timeline on this one,” Dubas said. “The job is now, if he were to clear (waivers), to go and earn his way back up.”

In 22 NHL games this season, the 29-year-old Jarry has an 8-8-4 record, a 3.32 goals-against average and an .886 save percentage.

As for the NHL roster, the immediate plan is to go with a tandem of incumbent backup Alex Nedeljkovic and the promising Blomqvist, the latter of whom cannot be formally recalled to the NHL roster until Jarry’s status is determined.

Nedeljkovic suffered an injury during the preseason and missed some time to open the regular season. That led to Blomqvist getting an unexpected residency on the NHL roster at the start of the 2024-25 campaign.

A second-round draft pick (No. 52 overall) in 2020, Blomqvist, 23, has appeared in eight NHL contests this season while posting a 3-5-0 record, a 3.60 GAA and a .904 save percentage.

“His athleticism and speed, the way he reads the game and he’s got good size, good movement,” Dubas said in explaining Blomqvist’s attributes. “That’s the technical. On the psychological side — and I think we’ve all seen it up here a little bit — when he has a bad stretch or bad game, he is able to put a stop to it and get it moving the other way. It’s going to be different here than the American League, but we’ll give him that chance.”

As for 29-year-old Nedeljkovic, he has played in 19 games and has a 7-7-4 record, a 3.40 GAA and an .886 save percentage.

The team turned to him as its primary goaltender during the late stages of the 2023-24 regular season when it made a valiant-but-futile push for the postseason. Nedeljkovic started the team’s final 13 games of the regular season while a mostly healthy Jarry predominantly served as a backup.

While making this maneuver might be necessary to salvage the club’s hopes for this upcoming postseason, it is hardly convenient given Jarry’s contract. He is in the second year of a five-year contract with an ample salary cap hit of $5.375 million.

According to Puckpedia, the most the Penguins can save on that number is $1.15 million in the probable event Jarry is assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. And with Blomqvist — he is in the second year of a three-year entry-level contract with a salary cap hit of $886,667 — scheduled to be recalled, Dubas estimated the Penguins would save approximately $230,000 in terms of the salary cap.

As of Wednesday afternoon (i.e. including Jarry’s contract), the Penguins have $4,742,013 of salary cap space.

Dubas downplayed the impact those potential transactions could have on the team’s approach to the NHL trade deadline March 7.

“No change,” said Dubas, who indicated he had discussions this past offseason about potentially trading Jarry. “It helps us a little bit on that front, but it’s never optimal.”

This contract has proven to be far from optimal since it was signed in July 2023. It was one of Dubas’ signature transactions in his first offseason running the Penguins.

He accepted responsibility for how underwhelming the deal has turned out.

“In terms of how it reflects on me, I think this is the job,” Dubas said. “You have to make decisions. The job is to make as few mistakes as possible, acknowledging that all of that is out there in the open for everybody to judge. I understand and agree with that. You’re not going to get any defense from me on it. It was my decision within the first couple weeks of being here.

“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. If there are mistakes that I make, I try to rectify them.”