Jarry stumbles early, stands tall through rebound victory

Surely, Tristan Jarry must have wanted to crawl under a rock or, at the very least, hide in his 4 x 6-foot net as 18,661 fans groaned their displeasure.

Thank God, or at least Jacques Plante, for goalie masks, because, undoubtedly, Jarry's face would have been burning a little red ... maybe purple, for all to see.

Cue 'Yakety Sax:'

Brandon Davidson's goal, a soft, 40-foot, no-angle, excuse-me backhander, just 1:11 into the Penguins' 3-2 overtime victory over the Islanders at PPG Paints Arena will probably live forever in the annals of blooper reels and SportsCenter Not-Top 10s for as long as hockey is played on skates and slippery surfaces.

"Just a weird one," Sidney Crosby said afterward.

Indeed. But the good thing for the Penguins -- no, make that the great thing -- is that Jarry's unfortunate fall didn't linger long in the 22-year-old goalie's mind. If you've watched the Penguins lately, Jarry in particular, you have seen them struggle mightily without Matt Murray. The three-game losing streak had been a crisis of confidence in net.

If Jarry's confidence hadn't been shaken by giving up four goals on 16 shots (.750 save percentage) in his previous start a week ago against the Panthers, then it had to be stirred by giving up five goals on 33 shots (.848) in relief of Casey DeSmith in Boston Thursday.

Whatever shred of confidence Jarry had left, it had to have been destroyed by the Davidson goal, right?

Well, no.

"It's one of those things where everyone falls on the ice," Jarry said. "I just happened to fall at a very bad time."

Funny thing, even funnier than the goal, Jarry gave up just one more goal the rest of the way -- even that one a bit of a fluke -- as the Penguins prevailed on Sidney Crosby's overtime winner.

Jarry made 25 saves, three of them in the overtime that included a two-minute, 4-on-3 New York power play, to win his sixth game of the season at a most opportune moment.

No one seemed happier about this than Jarry's coaches and teammates.

"Yeah, I was thrilled," Mike Sullivan said. "It's a tough one. He just ... I don't know what he did, to be quite honest with you: Lost an edge, or hit a rut or whatever. It was just one of those unfortunate circumstances, I thought. I was really happy with how he responded. As a young goalie, something like that happens that early in the game, and he understands that this is an important game for us. This is a high-stakes environment. There's a fine line between winning and losing. I thought he really responded well."

Obviously, the Penguins have the offensive arsenal to overcome an early deficit, but given their puck luck recently, a goal such as Davidson's could have discouraged all of them. Instead, they had Jarry's back.

"Our guys gave him a tap on the pads and said, 'Don't worry about it, we'll get it back,' and that's what they did," Sullivan said.

Jarry and DeSmith have been engaged in a battle to be the long-term backup to Murray, who has begun skating on his own and appears close to returning from a concussion sustained in practice last week.

Neither youngster has taken the reins of the No. 2 job, but Saturday was a good outing for Jarry. The 2014 second-rounder brings pedigree and, like Murray, is technically sound and unflappable when he's on his game. Other than that first goal, Jarry made Saturday look rather easy.

In recent days, he's been working with goaltending coach Mike Buckley, not so much on technical things, but on thickening his skin, shortening his memory and developing a "one-shot-at-a-time" mindset, he said.

"I thought the last two games, I struggled a little bit and didn't think my game was where I wanted it to be at," Jarry said. "I think the game tonight was a good performance for me, a good bounceback and something that I can grow on."

The Penguins should hope so. Given Murray's injury history, it is almost a given the backup will be called on again in far more important games than one during the first week of March.

1. Forty-nine shots ain't enough, Jack. Better make it 50.

That, and nearly 64 minutes, is what it took for the Penguins to win on Crosby's goal in overtime. Much like the team he plays for, Crosby simply persevered.

Just moments before ending the game, he missed a golden opportunity, a 2-on-1 chance with Conor Sheary, when the captain hit the side of the net. Given another chance on a 2-on-1, this time with Justin Schultz, Crosby kept it himself, using Schultz as a decoy, then snapped a shot between Christopher Gibson's pads:

"I don't know who chipped it, I think Tanger blocked it, and I ended up getting a loose puck," Crosby said. "Just tried to shoot it. Thought I had a good opportunity to shoot. Missed one right before that, so was glad to see it go in."

I'll bet.

It was the 12th OT winner for Crosby, tying Evgeni Malkin for the franchise record.

It was also his third goal in the past five games, coming on his game-high seventh shot after flying all night. That's good, but that also gives him just 22 goals for the season. Barring a torrid finish, which can't be dismissed, he'll have his lowest output since 28 in 2014-15.

2. At long last, Chad Ruhwedel returned.

And he didn't even know he was going to play until about 3:30 p.m., about 90 minutes before the puck dropped on an unusual late afternoon start time.

Admittedly there were some nerves, but Ruhwedel said he had a "good feeling" he was going to play his first game since Dec. 27. Apparently so did Sullivan, who opted to play Ruhwedel over the struggling Matt Hunwick.

"I thought it was an opportune time at this point just based on how our team was playing recently," Sullivan explained. "I thought he had a real solid game. Chad's a good player. He's been a valuable player for us. He plays that sixth-seventh defenseman role for us extremely well. When he comes in the lineup, he does a good job for us. I think he understands what his role is, he plays within himself."

Somewhat surprisingly, Sullivan broke up the Schultz-Olli Maatta pairing, and placed the steady Finn with Ruhwedel and had Jamie Oleksiak paired with Schultz. The Kris Letang-Brian Dumoulin pairing was the only to remain the same.

Playing with Maatta is fairly easy, Ruhwedel explained.

"We always seem to be on the same page, getting back to pucks first," he said.

Ruhwedel played 13:55, had three hits, one blocked shot, posted strong possession metrics and, perhaps most importantly, he drew this boarding call on Cal Clutterbuck in the second period that led to the Penguins getting on the board on Patric Hornqvist's power play goal:

Fortunately for Ruhwedel, he skated away unscathed. It was in the same corner at PPG Paints Arena that he suffered an upper body injury that first forced him out of the lineup on Dec. 27.

"Definitely wasn't expecting that to happen but was able to bounce back," Ruhwedel said. "It was good to move past that."

And maybe it's time for Sullivan to move past Hunwick. With Ian Cole gone, the Penguins need to get three pairs solidified down the stretch. After sitting for two months, Ruhwedel is deserving of an extended look.

3. Sheary is not your typical fourth-liner.

But that doesn't mean he can't be effective at it. The lines have become increasingly blurred in recent years regarding the roles of forwards, particularly in the postseason when scoring trumps physicality. You need to be able to roll four lines.

The Penguins had been going with a more traditional fourth line this season when they were (hardly) playing Ryan Reaves alongside Carter Rowney and Tom Kuhnhackl. Well, Reaves is gone to Vegas and Rowney was a healthy scratch vs. the Islanders.

Saturday's fourth line consisted of Riley Sheahan centering Kuhnhackl on the left and Sheary on the right. The trade for Derick Brassard, who scored his first as a Penguin, allows Sullivan some flexibility to get creative.

Sheary is hardly a grinder, but he did turn in his best performance in some time. He's still gone 14 games without a goal but did have three shots on goal, or the same number he had in the previous five games.

"We liked the line the way it was tonight," Sullivan said. "It brings an offensive dimension to it with Conor on it. Riley and Tom are two pretty responsible two-way players and we think Riley has the ability to score goals and make plays as well. It's a pretty good fourth line."

No argument here. Maybe when Zach Aston-Reese returns from his upper body injury he slots in for Dominik Simon on the third line and -- voilà! -- the lines are set.

4. OK, Jarry wasn't the best goalie on the ice.

That would be hard-luck loser Christopher Gibson. The Islanders goalie stopped 47 shots in his first NHL action in nearly two years.

Man, you had to feel for the 25-year-old. Playing goalie for the Islanders, a team that has now lost six in a row and has allowed the most goals and the most shots in the NHL, can't be easy. But going against a team like the Penguins deserves combat pay.

The Penguins held a 60-40 Corsi For advantage in possession (all situations) and the game resembled a shooting gallery at times. Gibson didn't have to make too many great saves, but the sheer volume made his performance remarkable.

As for shot No. 50, the game winner through the five hole?

“You had Sidney Crosby coming down on the two-on-one and I’ve never seen that before, so it was exciting,” Gibson said. “You want to get that goal back for sure, even if it’s Crosby.”

5. Don't forget the role of the PK.

After giving up four power-play goals (three in Boston) in six chances over the last two games, the Penguins' PK did its job when it counted most.

As for how New York got that power play, a too-many-men call when Sheahan played the puck before Malkin reached the bench? It was absolutely the right one, Sullivan said.

"It's just a difficult circumstance, but I think the referees have to call it," he said.

But this wasn't just any power play. It was overtime. It was a 4-on-3 -- a lot of open ice -- for a full two minutes. The Islanders might be struggling, but they still have game-breakers like John Tavares, Mathew Barzal and the NHL's ninth-ranked power play.

Credit where credit is due. Dumoulin was great in particular, while Carl Hagelin, Kuhnhackl, Rust and Maatta blocked everything in sight and cleared everything else, allowing Jarry to make one big save on a Tavares blast from the right circle which the goalie ate up with his right shoulder.

"You see the blocks they made, the plays they make on the PK," an appreciative Jarry said. "That's huge."

Yep, what he said.

MATT SUNDAY GALLERY