Kovacevic: Jarry's embarrassing showing requires immediate reversal

Tristan Jarry was terrible.

There. That's the column.

Look, when a goaltender gets gouged for four goals to the same side, three of those on long-range wristers, all of them unscreened ... yeah, that doesn't exactly allow for multiple layers of analysis. So I'll dispense with any such pretense regarding the Penguins' 4-3 overtime loss to the Islanders in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs Sunday at PPG Paints Arena, and, like Kyle Palmieri, I'll take aim where it hurts.

Meaning, of course, right at the glove:

I mean ... sorry, but that's embarrassing.

That's outright embarrassing.

And trust me, I'm applying that term literally far more than pejoratively. Because there's no way Jarry wasn't embarrassed by all of that, particularly given that it was his long-awaited inaugural playoff game as a No. 1 and, oh, yeah, given how passionately his teammates had performed through most of this ... right up until he'd suck the air out of the place all over again.

Good luck finding fault with anyone else. Or anything else. And I know because I tried.

See that second goal up there, the floater from Pluto by J-G Pageau?

I wanted to find fault with Cody Ceci for failing to put his stick down on that rush. Or for being a late arrival. But, thinking about it further, neither would've been fair, and that was only cemented when I'd ask afterward if he deliberately kept his stick back to avoid any odd deflection from that distance.

"Yeah, exactly," he replied. "That was kind of the decision that was in my head. I was trying to let Jarrs see it as much as possible. And I was kinda late getting over. I was skating off for a line change, so I had to backtrack a little bit."

He can't say it, so I will: He thought his goaltender might stop a wrister from atop the left circle.

The overtime goal, Palmieri's second of the afternoon, belongs in a separate category while still being branded a stinker:

The shot itself is exceptional, and that's the singular separator from the rest. Palmieri tapped a bouncing puck once, then whacked it up into the top right corner through the one hole Jarry had conceded.

This is the rub, though: That hole doesn't need to be conceded.

Goaltending gurus describe Jarry's stance of choice there as the Reverse Vertical Horizontal -- or RVH, and yeah, there's actually an acronym for it -- approach to post integration. It's generally utilized when a skater's coming out from below the goal line and couldn't conceivably elevate a shot, forehand or backhand. The puck did pop out from below the goal line, but Palmieri obviously wasn't there upon collecting it, so the stance should've shifted to something more straightforward.

And upright. There's zero plus to dropping to one knee, let alone both. Even if Jarry's hope is to drop to the left knee to brace for a push off the post in the event Palmieri passes -- not that anyone was in the slot to receive it -- dropping to both is nothing other than a technical error. Jarry shrunk himself, in essence. From that angle, Palmieri should've been blinded by gold.

Once more, it's a great play by Palmieri and a bad one by Jarry. Both things can be true.

"He's able to create something out of nothing," Brock Nelson observed of his teammate Palmieri, and that summed it up best.

It was predictably close to impossible getting anyone on the home side to discuss Jarry, though I did give it a shot with Mike Sullivan:

"I thought Tristan make some big saves over the course of the game to keep the game where it was," the man replied, reading from the scripture of hockey diplomacy. "There were some good saves on both ends of the rink. I just think we have to be better as a group."

Sure he does.

But here again, he can't say it, so I will: His team wins this game in a walk if Jarry had been even mediocre.

The Penguins dictated possession from the outset and, to repeat, appeared deflated only periodically and only when Jarry was the pinprick. They were smart and swift through all three zones, the best forward on the ice was Sidney Crosby, the best player at any position was Kris Letang, and even Evgeni Malkin's absence was mitigated by Freddy Gaudreau's icebreaking goal. All in all, it couldn't have gone any better but for Jarry.

And no, please, spare me that Jarry also made several outstanding saves. As Tom Barrasso once philosophized when he deigned to descend from the mountain and speak to us mere mortals, "It's not the saves you make. It's the goals you give up."

So, what now?

I'm betting it's no longer being ignored that Casey DeSmith was hurt in practice this past Friday, as it seemed to be at the time. Regardless of how anyone measures his pedigree, he was a reliable backup every bit as capable of getting hot as Jarry was, and his being unavailable stings. Not that I'd have expected Sullivan to give up on Jarry after one lousy loss, but it'd have been a lot less unsettling knowing DeSmith was there if it recurs Tuesday in Game 2.

And no, Maxime Lagace is not an option after having barely played all season -- nine games in Wilkes-Barre, one in Pittsburgh -- while carried around on the taxi squad. Stop that thought process at once.

Gaudreau spoke for the group, I'd think, when asked his level of confidence in Jarry after this.

"Huge," he came back without hesitation. "Jarrs is a hell of a goaltender. We've always had great confidence in him. We know how good he is, and our level of confidence in him will never change. He's awesome."

One way or another, we'll see. There's one problem here, but there's also only one solution.

• Few things in hockey are more painful than accepting that Barry Trotz is smart, but his clear dig at Jarry and DeSmith earlier in the week -- he described the Penguins by saying, "They’ve got a real good forward group. The defensemen are mobile. They’ve got two inexperienced goaltenders" -- now looks prescient. And don't think for a second that isn't what he's pushing to his players behind the scenes.

• Quick, name any mediocre starting goaltender -- in the moment -- to become a Stanley Cup champion?

Corey Crawford?

Eh, that'd get some blowback in the Windy City, but I'll accept it. And not anyone else.

• What's most worrisome about Malkin's absence isn't a game here or there. Rather, it's that, even once he returns, there's no telling how long that knee will hold up. Or if opponents will allow it to hold up. And that, in and of itself, potentially changes the complexion of these entire playoffs.

Not to be an even bigger bummer.

• I wasn't wild about Sullivan splitting up Jeff Carter's line so that Carter could bump up to second-line center between Jared McCann and Kasperi Kapanen. Carter's original line, with McCann and Gaudreau, had been the Penguins' most effective down the stretch, and it didn't matter that it was the third line listed on the chart.

In this game, each of the top three lines scored a goal at five-on-five, so I don't have any more complaints with that than I do with the skaters' showing as a whole. But until Kapanen's excellent tying goal late in the third period, it didn't feel as if he'd offered much, and he'll unquestionably need to do that.

• I'll be stunned if Malkin doesn't suit up for Game 2.

• Don't be lazy and make this about the 1-10 playoff funk or, in that same context, the core: Sid and Letang, to reiterate, were outstanding. Sharp. Energetic. Physical.

Sid's output, specifically, moved Trotz to muse, "You know what I think of Sid: Sid is the gold standard. I was trying to take away his time and space, which you always want to do. But he's such a dynamic player, and that's a very good hockey team. That line in particular is very, very good. They came out flying. That's why he's been the captain and they've had lots of success. So we respect what he can do, but we've got to make sure we limit his ability to do some of those things."

Sid, Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust combined to produce 17 of the game's 24 scoring chances at five-on-five while they were on the ice together.

• For his part, Sid accentuated the positive: "I thought we did some good things. Especially in the first half, I thought we were on our toes, created a lot. I still think there's some things that we can improve on, but I thought we came out with the right mindset and generated a lot of chances. We'll look to continue to do that."

What changed after the first half?

Principally, from this perspective, the Islanders became more aggressive. And uncharacteristically so. Even on the PK, for example, Cal Clutterbuck strayed from their trademark tight box to pressure the puck-carrier. This carried on across their play.

That's not to suggest the Penguins were outplayed from that point onward, but things did even out and stayed that way through overtime.

It's also not to suggest Trotz made some brilliant tactical adjustment. His team was getting owned, and the passive thing hadn't worked through eight regular-season games, so all he really did was turn the book to the only other page. And within that, there isn't much of anything Sullivan could've or should've done to counter.

Other than to wake his goaltender up, I guess.

• Still doubting that the Penguins did well defensively?

OK, Mat Barzal logged 20 minutes, 22 seconds of ice time and registered one shot on goal. Jordan Eberle, who scores against Pittsburgh upon rolling out of bed, logged 21:16 and two shots on goal. And on the Islanders' lone power play, a double-minor to Carter for high-sticking Nelson, they totaled two shots on goal and three attempts.

Thought so.

• The 4,672 on hand made the loudest sound anyone could expect from a gathering of humans that size as the team took the ice for pregame intros and, to be honest, I really tried to take that in ... hoping I'll never have to hear it again:

The crowd will progress to half-capacity for Game 2 and, as such, we'll all be halfway home.

• Dropping the first two of this series, then traveling across to Long Island and dealing with a freshly authorized 9,000-plus fans, which in that old barn and with those rabid fans, will feel like 20,000 ... that'd be quite the system shock after two years of relative silence.

Hey, Jarry's bounced back before. With a violent U-turn, no less. Against this same opponent. He can do it again.

He'd better.