It appears the Pittsburgh Penguins have themselves a Najee Harris-esque injury situation developing with goaltender Tristan Jarry.

Jarry is saying that he is playing through injury while the head coach is downplaying it.

That hasn’t worked out great for Harris and the Steelers much of the year at Acrisure Stadium. Pens fans better hope the situation rectifies itself more quickly for their goalie at PPG Paints Arena.

After a 5-4 overtime loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night, Jarry revealed he has been dealing with some sort of physical ailments.

“I’ve been dealing with some issues,” Jarry said after the game. “That’s obviously affected my playing. I’m trying to get back to 100% healthy. I’m trying to do everything I can. I think that’s what affected it.”

Jarry let three separate one-goal leads slip away in that game, twice yielding a goal within a minute of the Penguins grabbing a lead.

Mike Sullivan, though, gave no credence to the idea that a level of injury was a variable in Jarry’s play. The head coach simply answered “no” when asked if the team needs to monitor how much Jarry is playing and “no” again when asked if there are any physical issues with Jarry.

Hmm. Well, at least Sullivan didn’t say that Jarry was just “stepped on” in practice.

That was Mike Tomlin’s simple “make the media questions go away” explanation for what happened to Harris during an early training camp practice this summer. After barely practicing the rest of their month at Saint Vincent College, Harris had a spotty preseason and eventually revealed on his own that he had been dealing with a Lisfranc foot injury the whole time.

As Harris’ struggles to replicate his rookie season continued into the 2022 regular season, the 2021 first-round pick then indicated that the nature of the injury was such that he had been playing with a steel plate in his shoe. It wasn’t removed until the team’s sixth game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Harris finally had an impactful game for the first time in 2022 this past Sunday when he rushed for 99 yards during a victory against the New Orleans Saints.

I almost always side with the athletes in situations like these. It’s their bodies. It’s their reputations. It’s their names. If they want to disclose what is physically wrong with themselves, they should have every right to do so.

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I understand where the coaches are coming from in the sense that they may be paranoid about opponents trying to exploit such injury news in terms of game preparation. Or they may be fearful that opposing teams may take a dirty shot at their player if they know where a specific injury is located. Or, perhaps some coaches simply subscribe to the “if you are healthy enough to play, then go out there and play” mantra.

You know, no excuses n’at.

I get it.

But that’s a little rigid, isn’t it? Especially for a player such as Jarry who, by all accounts, probably wasn’t healthy enough to play in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals last year, but still did so in New York because the Pens were desperate for goaltending help against the Rangers.

A big reason why I side with players on matters like this because I feel like they have less reason to fudge the truth. It’s not as if athletes like to admit they are injured. For the reasons above, that doesn’t do them much good. But coaches have every reason in the world to flat-out lie about injuries to their players — if their respective leagues were to allow them to do so.

Theoretically, for gambling purpos– … uh, I mean … in the name of transparency for the fans and media, that’s why organizations have to provide some sort of injury reports or when players miss games or practices. But, espcially in the NHL, there are no rules about how truthful they need to be.

And that’s why phrases such as “upper body/lower body,” “maintenance day,” “veterans day off” and “he got stepped on” are part of the public information cat-and-mouse game that coaches like to play.

Whatever the case with Jarry, the Penguins need better goaltending out of him, and they need him healthy. Backup Casey DeSmith has been decent of late. He’s won his past two starts. In three of his last four appearances, DeSmith has allowed just two goals or less.

But that can’t continue forever, and DeSmith has also shown propensity for injury if he plays too much.

That’s how Pittsburgh became familiar with Louis Domingue and “spicy pork and broccoli,” as you may recall.

Brian Metzer and I talk about all these issues in this week’s hockey podcast. We also preview Tuesday’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs. And we discuss former Penguins goalie Matt Murray, who is slated to start for the Leafs against his old team at PPG Paints Arena for the first time.

Listen: Tim Benz and Brian Metzer talk Penguins hockey

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