(Photo by AP)

Kyle Dubas had a mostly successful first few weeks at the helm of things for the Penguins. 

He traded for Reilly Smith, a great top six forward. He drafted Brayden Yager, who looks very excited to be here, in the first round of the NHL Draft. In free agency, he was quite busy, changing up and improving the depth at the forward positions, and bolstering the blue line. 

But one move sticks out far more than all of the others: Tristan Jarry’s five-year, $26.875 million contract extension. 

Leaving aside the modified no trade clause that Dubas also gave him, that’s an insane amount of money for Tristan Jarry.  

It’s a big commitment to make to any player in the NHL. It’s a much bigger one to make to a goaltender who has repeatedly let this team down. 

The Penguins have never been able to fully rely on Jarry, and he has never given them a reason to, which makes this massive extension all the more baffling. 

Whether it be from injury or just a total collapse in play, Tristan Jarry has not been a consistent enough goaltender to warrant that kind of money, and especially, that kind of term. 

Five years for Jarry will take him to the end of the Crosby-Malkin-Letang era, and committing to a goaltender that has a history of letting this organization dramatically reduces any window this core has remaining at winning one more Stanley Cup. 

Some would rightfully believe that the window has already closed, and moves like this certainly don’t change their minds. 

This past season, Jarry played in just 47 games, spending several stints on the injury list. In his 47 games, he recorded just a .909 save percentage and a 2.90 goals against average. Those aren’t good numbers. They don’t get you to the playoffs. 

And guess what? They didn’t. 

Jarry was the goalie in net during that hellish game against Chicago, where he gave up five goals and let the team down again. That loss against the 25-win Blackhawks were the reason the Florida Panthers made the Stanley Cup Playoffs. 

People will get upset when you mention that the Penguins choking a game away against the worst team in the league is the reason why the Panthers were able to go on a run all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals. And I understand why. Some who mention this game point to Florida’s amazing run and say that could have been the Penguins. 

Trust me, I have no belief that the Penguins would have made any noise in the playoffs had they got in. After watching them last season, I firmly believe that they would have been dismantled and swept in the first round by Boston. 

But the Penguins inability to win that game, at home, against Chicago, was the reason Florida made it. Tristan Jarry giving up two goals in under two minutes to turn a 1-1 game with the crowd in a frenzy to a 3-1 game with a silenced arena is the reason the Panthers went on a Finals run. 

That’s a thing that happened and something we should continue to remember. 

To be fair, Jarry is far from the only reason I think Pittsburgh would have had a quick playoff exit, but he is one of the biggest. 

What faith can we reasonably have that Tristan Jarry is a playoff goaltender? 

We all remember the 2021 playoffs, when Jarry completely melted down against the Islanders and cost the Penguins the series. He had an .888 save percentage and a 3.18 goals against average. He single-handedly gave away Game 5 when he passed the puck directly to Josh Bailey. 

The year later, he was injured for all but Game 7 of that series against the Rangers, the series that saw the rapid rise and even more rapid fall of Louis Domingue. 

For years, we watched the Penguins do nothing to address the one issue that had cost them back to back playoff serieses and a playoff spot. Now that Ron Hextall is gone, we may have hoped that Kyle Dubas and the new front office staff were here to save us, and actually make changes. 

We were sorely mistaken. 

Dubas is a smart man, but the one area of roster construction he could never master was the goaltending position. Dubas brought in countless names to try and solidify the net for the Maple Leafs, but many of his moves did not pay off. 

Jack Campbell, Petr Mrazek, Matt Murray, Frederik Anderson, Michael Hutchinson, and Ilya Samsonov were all goaltenders to play for the Leafs in the past few years. 

Many simply did not work out, and in the case for Samsonov, it took him a while to really get going for the Leafs. 

But at least Dubas had brought in names in Toronto. Here in Pittsburgh? No such luck. 

It’s been a flaw for head coach Mike Sullivan as well. Jarry has been his guy for years, and Sully has routinely bet on Jarry even after he gave him absolutely no reason to. 

It just feels like settling. Was there really no one in free agency we could give a shot to? Were the asking prices for goaltenders in the trade market really all too high? 

How likely is it that the Penguins simply did not have the assets to acquire a guy like John Gibson from Anaheim, Connor Hellebuyck from Winnipeg, or perhaps one of the goalies up in cap-strapped Boston?

On the surface, it’s somewhat reasonable to believe. Gibson is a valuable player, Hellebuyck has been a star for a long time, and Boston’s duo of Jeremy Swayman and Linus Ullmark just won the Jennings Trophy. 

The Penguins have a depleted prospect pool, and the team really isn’t in a position anymore to fire first round picks into the sun. Maybe Jarry was the much cheaper guy, where the Penguins were giving up merely cap space as opposed to prospects, picks, and likely a few roster players, 

But then you see the rumblings that the Penguins were in on Erik Karlsson, and some of that thinking goes out the window. Why would you send assets to San Jose for Karlsson, who is not a goaltender?

Alex Nedeljkovic, the free agent goaltender that the Penguins signed, is likely the new backup in town. Where that leaves Casey DeSmith is yet to be seen. 

But what does Nedeljkovic bring?

Given his pay and term, it doesn’t look like the Penguins are expecting a miracle from him. After a stellar rookie year in Carolina, he fell upon hard times in Detroit, including AHL time this past season. Granted, it’s probably been hard for most players to have a good year in Detroit over the last through years as they trudge through their rebuild. Nevertheless, it’s hard to look past the deep drops that his stats have taken.

Nedeljkovic, to his credit, has shown he can be lights out. In his year in Carolina, he recorded a .932 save percentage and a 1.90 goals against average. Both of those stats were league leaders that year. But these last few years with the Red Wings have seen massive regression.

When he is healthy and on his game, he can be one of the better goalies in the league. Have you heard that somewhere else before?

Oh right! It’s what Mike Sullivan and others say about Tristan Jarry all the time. The Penguins brought in another goaltender who has the same streakiness as Jarry. 

Time will tell whether Dubas’ big bet on Jarry was worth it. But given Jarry’s performance these last few years, and Dubas’ track record with goaltenders, the results don’t look promising. 

This extension  could be the most defining movement of Dubas’ Pittsburgh tenure, however long it may be. He’s tying the last years of this treasured core to a goaltender that still has a lot to prove. 

I really want to be wrong. But I really fear that I’m not.