NEW YORK -- The Penguins first of this two-game series in New York on Thursday was one of Tristan Jarry's best games since returning from his upper-body injury on Feb. 20.
The Rangers earned a 4-2 decision in that game, but Jarry was a bright spot in the loss, stopping 31 of the 34 shots he faced.
Mike Sullivan called it Jarry's "best game," and said that he took a "big step" in the loss.
Sullivan went back to Jarry for the second game of the series here at Madison Square Garden on Saturday. If Thursday's game was a "big step" forward, Saturday's 6-0 loss was a step backward for Jarry.
Jarry's night ended early. He stopped 13 of 17 shots, getting yanked in favor of Casey DeSmith when Chris Kreider's goal gave the Rangers a 4-0 lead just 6:43 into the second period.
Mika Zibanejad opened the scoring for the second game in a row, beating Jarry with a backhand shot from the bottom of the right circle. Artemi Panarin doubled the Rangers' lead with a power-play tally with 10.3 seconds remaining in the first, a shot from the left circle that beat Jarry short-side. Vladimir Tarasenko scored in the second period off of a 3-on-1 with Marcus Pettersson as the only man back, and Kreider chased Jarry with a redirect in front.
DeSmith finished the game and didn't see much action. He stopped five of seven shots faced, allowing second-period goals to Panarin and Jacob Trouba. The Penguins stopped the bleeding in the third period by holding the Rangers to four shots on goal.
The Penguins were the better team as far as shot attempts, shots on goal, and high-danger chances all go in each of the three periods. The Penguins recorded 17 high-danger chances to the Rangers' nine. That translated to 3.44 expected goals for the Penguins, and 2.11 expected goals for the Rangers.
The score isn't indicative of how lopsided the game actually was. But one team had Igor Shesterkin making highlight-reel saves on the 33 shots he faced, and the other had a Jarry that's still not quite back to 100% in the month since he's returned from injury. That's not to put the blame for the game entirely on Jarry, not at all. The guys in front of him sure didn't help.
That went into the decision to pull Jarry, too. A lot of times when Sullivan makes the decision to pull a goaltender, it's not solely based on his performance. Sometimes, it's done to try to send a message to the team in front of him.
"There were a number of things that were going through my mind at that particular point," Sullivan said. "You know, sometimes you make a change with the goaltender to try to create a spark. But there were a number of things that went through my mind."
I asked Sidney Crosby what that does for the team when Sullivan does make that change.
"I think every scenario is different," he said. "They had momentum. I don't think it's anything Jars could have done. We gave some good opportunities, it's just a momentum shift. You never like to see your goalie get pulled, and we all feel responsible when that happens."
Jarry has now been pulled in four of his last 10 starts. Among the 41 goaltenders with at least five starts since Jarry returned on Feb. 20, Jarry ranks third-worst in both save percentage (.863) and goals-against average (4.17). That's concerning.
"I think every night it's a little bit different," Sullivan said of Jarry's performance. "I know that the numbers don't appear, on the surface, to be what they are. But some of the looks that we gave up were high-quality looks. Those are the things that we're working on to try to eliminate. But without a doubt, I just think we're working with Tristan to get him up to his best game. You guys have asked me these questions here for the last couple of weeks. My answer hasn't changed. It is what it is. We're trying to get him repetitions, we're trying to help him there under difficult circumstance. We're working at it, I think he's making strides, for sure. His last game, I thought it was a real strong game that he had. Tonight, for me, is a real tough one to assess."
DeSmith has been better as of Jarry as of late. Since the March 3 trade deadline, DeSmith ranks seventh in the league in save percentage (.927) and sixth in goals-against average (2.07) among goaltenders with at least three games played. But as Sullivan said prior to Thursday's game, they're "trying to make the best decisions for the team, both in the short term and in the big picture." Yeah, these games are important. But they also need to get Jarry back to his best as the playoffs get closer, and that doesn't happen by giving DeSmith the starts and letting Jarry ride the bench. He needs to play.
There are 13 games left in the Penguins' regular-season schedule with two sets of back-to-backs. Jarry's capable of putting forth the performances needed to give his team a chance to win, like we just saw on Thursday. They need to see that more consistently from him going into this last stretch of the season.
