You can understand why Penguins general manager Ron Hextall responded to the question the way he did Wednesday afternoon. A wry half-smile, a quick toss of the hand and a slight shake of the head.

As of Wednesday, NHL teams were allowed to start signing players to contract extensions if they only have one year left on their existing contracts.

So will Hextall start doing that?

With the draft having just recently completed, only a day into free agency, and nine defensemen currently under contract, talking about next year’s free agents probably felt like 12 years away for Hextall. Not 12 months.

But for the Penguins this year, at least one important decision has to be made during the rest of this summer about a guy who is slated to become a free agent at this time a year from now.

That’s goaltender Tristan Jarry.

Jarry has one year left to go on his existing deal at $3.5 million.

If the Penguins want to prevent Jarry from sniffing free agency, they may want to tempt him with the allure of guaranteed money now and get an extension done before the start of the season.

Much like their neighbors at Heinz Fi … oops, sorry … Acrisure Stadium, the Penguins don’t like to have contract negotiations once a season begins. For the Steelers, that’s long been a hard rule. There may be a little latitude for Hextall and the Penguins, but not much.

“We don’t typically talk to players during the season. It’s a little bit of a distraction. It doesn’t mean we never will. It’s not a policy. We’ll see where that goes. We’ll have discussions internally,” Hextall said.

So really, the Penguins don’t have 12 months to make a call on Jarry. If they want to extend him, they have about three. The franchise’s first game is Oct. 13 against the Arizona Logan Cooleys at (presumably still) PPG Paints Arena.

“The last month has been just absolutely crazy with the draft and negotiations, preparing for free agency,” Hextall said. “We’ll get to that in the next few weeks. I’ve never been one to be in a hurry with that stuff.”

My guess is if Jarry got an offer that’s even close to fair, he’d take it. What’s another All-Star regular season going to prove? He’s had two already. What he has to prove is that he can get the job done in the postseason.

One time as a starter, he failed miserably against the New York Islanders in 2021. The other time, he was hurt — this spring against the New York Rangers.

If Jarry bets on himself and has another good regular season, good for him. But for a team that has done nothing to change its roster from the squad that just suffered a fourth straight first-round playoff elimination, there’s no guarantee they make it back as one of the Eastern Conference’s top eight qualifiers or that Jarry will have a good enough squad in front of him to change the minds of those who may doubt his playoff ceiling.

In this organization or any other.

From the Penguins’ point of view, the front office should be leery of committing even one dollar more into the future than it already has.

Because not only are the Penguins likely to start this season with a roster nearly identical to the one that ended 2022, the team that ends this season will likely be very similar to the one that starts next year. And the year after. And the year after that.

Six contracts (including Sidney Crosby’s) on that roster stretch through 2025 with some type of movement-minimizing clause. Evgeni Malkin goes through 2026. Mike Matheson is tied down under such conditions through 2027. Bryan Rust, Rickard Rakell and Kris Letang are all operating under such terms through 2028.

As attractive as those players may be now, and as much of a bargain as the average annual values and cash payouts may be that far into the future, those players may be hard to move to replenish the roster if their production dips with age.

Goalie may be one of the few spots where the Penguins can shake things up in the years to come. Based on what we’ve seen this year, they constantly seem to be on a carousel across the league.

Maybe that’s part of the reason why Hextall doesn’t appear to feel under the gun with the soft deadline of the regular season starting to work out an extension with Jarry.

Plus, as we just learned with Malkin’s negotiations, maybe it’s best to simply wait until the last minute anyway.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)