BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Tristan Jarry has scored a goal before.
After a couple of close attempts in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Jarry scored the first goalie goal in Wilkes-Barre team history on Nov. 14, 2018, when the Penguins were up by two goals in a game against the Springfield Thunderbirds:
He's still goalless at the NHL level, but he took a shot at the net when the Sabres pulled their goaltender when the Penguins led by two in Thursday's game in Buffalo. It went wide of the net, but when Bryan Rust recovered the puck and put it into the empty net himself, Jarry got an assist:
"When you don't see anybody in the middle of the ice and they dump it in and there's an opening in the middle, I guess is the only opportunity," Jarry said after Friday's practice when asked what he saw that led him to shoot.
It was the first time this season that Jarry had attempted a shot at the empty net, even though there have been times when he's handled the puck when the opposing team had its goaltender pulled. I asked him about what game situations need to be in play for him to go for the empty net like that.
"I think obviously we'd have to be up by a couple," he said. "Just in case it turns into an icing or something like that, I think that's not as much high-stress as if we were up by one goal. I think that's kind of when I thought to do it."
Mike Sullivan said that he has no qualms about Jarry taking those shots, as long as he chooses those moments carefully.
"If it's relatively safe, I think he has the ability to play the puck," Sullivan said. "For me, the most important thing is getting it out of the danger zone and defend first. We would ideally, in a perfect scenario, like our defensemen to be the guys that handle the puck. That's always the priority. But certainly Tristan is a guy who plays the puck extremely well, he's just got to use his intelligence and make sure that he's putting the puck in the safe areas."
The assist was Jarry's third of the season, a new career high. It moves him into a five-way tie for 16th place in team scoring with Colton Sceviour, Evan Rodrigues, Mark Jankowski, and Brian Dumoulin, and gives him the No. 1 spot in the league's scoring race among goaltenders. It's an interesting statistic, but not one he's too concerned with.
"No, I think the biggest thing for me is just wins," he said. "You want to have as many wins as possible, I think that's our team goal, to get as many wins. Especially this time of year, it's starting to get down to the last 30 games. Getting every win that we can, and getting them in bunches helps a lot."
MORE FROM PRACTICE
• John Marino was absent from practice. Sullivan said after practice that he was still day-to-day with an upper-body injury.
• Jason Zucker and Jared McCann are both "status-quo" and remain in Pittsburgh working through the rehab process.
• The lines and pairings were the same as last game:
Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust
Evan Rodrigues-Evgeni Malkin-Kasperi Kapanen
Zach Aston-Reese-Teddy Blueger-Brandon Tanev
Colton Sceviour-Mark Jankowski-Anthony Angello
(Sam Lafferty)
Brian Dumoulin-Kris Letang
Mike Matheson-Cody Ceci
Marcus Pettersson-Chad Ruhwedel
(Juuso Riikola-Mark Friedman)
• Practice was only about 25 minutes and included no special teams work.
• Extra skaters Mark Friedman, Sam Lafferty, and Juuso Riikola took part in the main practice and also joined the taxi squad for a second skate afterward.
• Josh Currie was re-assigned from the taxi squad back to Wilkes-Barre, so the taxi squad includes goaltender Max Lagace, forward Freddy Gaudreau, and defenseman Yannick Weber.
• I wrote last night about the fourth line starting to come together. Sceviour spoke after practice, so I asked him what he thought went so well for his line.
"I think we got some pressure in the O-zone that turned into some O-zone time and chances off of that," he said. "I think as a line, we created more opportunities down low off the cycle. That's the kind of game we turned it into, and it worked out well for us last night.