Tristan Jarry still sits atop Penguins' depth chart in goal

A position-by-position look at the Pittsburgh Penguins as they approach training camp. Today, the goaltenders.

It wouldn’t be a stretch of reality if Tristan Jarry improves considerably in the upcoming season.

After all, it’s hard to do worse than some of the lowest points of his clunker of a 2024-25 season.

Sent to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League on two occasions, Jarry hit rock bottom when he was waived – and went unclaimed – in January. After going through that indignity, Jarry returned to the NHL club in early March and offered what was arguably the best prolonged stretch the Penguins enjoyed last season (admittedly, against few other worthy candidates for that designation).

In his final 14 games of the season, Jarry had an 8-4-2 record, a 2.81 goals-against average, a .904 save percentage along with two shutouts while largely looking like a stable top goaltender.

It might be an overstatement to say Jarry saved his job with a solid performance down the stretch of last season, but he did enough to remain the team’s leading option entering this upcoming season.

Who the second option in net will be is more of an uncertainty, as the Penguins have several viable younger options, especially following the departure of veteran Alex Nedeljkovic via trade in July.

Arturs Silovs was acquired through a trade from the Vancouver Canucks on July 13 after he led the AHL’s Abbotsford Canucks to the Calder Cup championship last spring.

Dominant during that run, Silovs appeared in 24 contests and posted a 16-7-0 record, a 2.01 GAA, .931 save percentage and five shutouts.

The 24-year-old has some NHL experience – 19 regular season games and 10 postseason contests – but has been inconsistent during those sporadic appearances.

The same could be said for Joel Blomqvist, who made his NHL debut with the Penguins last season. An early season replacement for an injured Nedeljkovic, Blomqvist looked up to the challenge while mostly under duress behind a leaky defense throughout October and November. But when he replaced the struggling Jarry in January, he looked beleaguered more often than not. It was later revealed he was dealing with an unspecified injury in the late stages of the season.

The talent is still there for the 23-year-old Blomqvist, an AHL All-Star in 2023-24. He needs to offer matching results once again.

Sergei Murashov offered some marvelous results in his first season on this continent. The Russia-born goaltender split the campaign between Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Wheeling of the ECHL and looked good with both outfits.

It might be premature to suggest he is NHL ready at this moment, but the 21-year-old appears to be the leading candidate to be the Penguins’ top goaltender of the future, provided he builds on his strong 2024-25.

Then, there’s 27-year-old Filip Larsson.

A sixth-round draft pick (No. 167) of the Detroit Red Wings in 2016, the Swedish goaltender returned to North America after rebuilding his game and confidence in Europe and was actually Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s most regularly deployed goaltender, leading the team with 26 appearances. He was one of the AHL’s leaders in shutouts with five.

Larsson did well in his first season with the Penguins, but given his age and the trajectories of younger options such as Silovs, Blomqvist and Murashov, he might just get lost in a numbers game.