Penguins feeding off Jarry’s three shutouts in five straight victories

ELMONT, N.Y. -- After Friday's morning skate at UBS Arena, Brian Dumoulin said that the Penguins had "extra motivation" going into that night's game against the Islanders after the first-round Stanley Cup playoff elimination this past spring.

"We had a good feeling last year that we had a good team,"  Dumoulin said. "And obviously, they knocked us out."

Of the returning players from last season's Penguins team, nobody had more room for a bigger redemption arc and more reason for that "extra motivation" than Tristan Jarry. His infamous Game 5 misplay of the puck aside, he recorded the worst measure of goals saved above expected of any goaltender in the postseason since 2014. 

So when Jarry was named the No. 1 star in the 1-0 win Friday night for his 26-save shutout of the Islanders -- his third shutout in his and the Penguins’ five consecutive victories -- one might assume that he had a little additional satisfaction afterward.

Either Jarry has a really good poker face, or this really was just like any other game, and any other shutout for him.

Asked if this shutout meant the most to him of his three shutouts in this recent run, Jarry replied, “It's just another game against a different team. I think that's been my mindset this year, I just want to put my best foot forward and make sure I'm doing my part to try and help the team. The guys are doing a great job in front of me blocking shots, making sure we're getting pucks deep. And I think that's been the key over our last five games."

Right. But really, was there no extra satisfaction in putting up a game like this against the Islanders specifically, given how last season ended? 

"It's just another game," he reiterated. "It's another team, where you get to play a whole bunch of different teams this year, we're not playing the same team over and over. So I think it's just having the mindset of it's a new game, it's a new team, and it's a new start for me."

Jarry's always had that kind of level, even-keel attitude, at least when speaking with the media. Whether it's the day after that Game 5 mistake and he's explaining the turnover that handed New York an overtime goal, or he’s performing like this, his demeanor is exactly the same. He never comes off as too high or too low, and that's probably a strength of his as a goaltender. He can't afford to get too hung up on one loss or bask too long in the glory of a win.

While Jarry doesn't seem to be too affected by the emotions that come with the ebbs and flows of a season, his teammates do sense a change in his attitude that is contributing to his hot streak he's on. And they're able to feed off of it.

"He's just confident, you can tell," Kasperi Kapanen said of Jarry. "He's calm, and he's poised in net. And that gives us confidence. I feel like as a group, ever since he's been playing well, we've been playing well too. So he's been a big, big key for our success."

"Just confident hockey," Jake Guentzel said. "I mean, he's playing some tremendous hockey. ... He gives us all the confidence in the world when he's back there."

They have that confidence in Jarry because of plays like this, when Dumoulin turned the puck over in an attempt to set up Guentzel for a breakout, and Jarry was there to bail him out:

Or this, when the Islanders are pushing hard late in the third period for the tying goal, but Jarry's able to pull out a highlight-reel save on Otto Koivula to keep the Islanders from getting back into the game:

Jarry credited new goaltending coach Andy Chiodo and the rest of the coaching staff after the game with preparing him for games like these, and making sure he's coming into games with the right mindset, something he said has been "the key" to his success so far this season.

"I just want to play my best hockey," he said. "That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get better every day."

MORE FROM THE GAME

• The Penguins' five-game win streak is the longest active streak in the NHL.

• Even if Jarry didn't seem to be fazed one way or the other by who they just beat, others admitted some extra satisfaction.

"I mean, they've knocked us out twice in the last three years," Guentzel said, "So I think yeah, every time we play them, yeah, you get excited for this game. I think for us just to get a win there, it felt nice."

• Kapanen's goal was the lone goal of the game. It was his fifth of the year and ended a six-game goalless drought.

"I feel like all game, we put a lot of pucks on (Ilya Sorokin) and he was making some great saves. Lucky enough, we got got one past him tonight."

• Bryan Rust was a late scratch after briefly being on the ice for warmups. Sullivan said that Rust was being evaluated for a lower-body injury. No clues as to what that might be or how it happened.

• Evan Rodrigues shifted from third-line center to Rust's spot on the first-line right wing, and then Brian Boyle played his first game since Nov. 14 and slotted in on the third line in Rodrigues' place between Dominik Simon and Danton Heinen. 

"I thought E-Rod did a real good job," Sullivan said after the win. "You know, he's playing extremely well for us. He's played with Sid in the past, last year, he played on that line for a fair amount of time. So they're very familiar, we thought it was a natural decision to put him up there. I thought Sid's line was really good, and E-Rod was a big part of it."

Guentzel called Rodrigues "just another guy that steps up when his number is called."

"E-Rod's playing some really good hockey, he's a really good player," Guentzel said of having Rodrigues on his line. "I thought he played a great game, just kind of feeding off us, I thought that we had chances."

• Even aside from Jarry's big saves to keep the score what it was in the third period, Sullivan liked the way his team handled the late pressure from the Islanders.

"I thought the team as a whole competed hard," he said. "We defended hard, we were playing on our toes. We had a couple of opportunities, a couple of breakaways late in the game to get that (potential) second goal. We created that off of our defense. This has been a message I think that our coaching staff has tried to preach here since training camp, is just being a team that can create offense different ways. And one of the best ways to do it is to create offense through your defense."

Those breakaways came from Zucker and Sidney Crosby:

Sorokin seemed to especially enjoy that save on Crosby:

GETTY

Ilya Sorokin smiles at Sidney Crosby after stopping Crosby on a breakaway in the third period at UBS Arena on Friday.

• Jarry (26-save shutout) and Sorokin (29 saves) were fittingly the first two stars. Kapanen as the third star would have made sense, given that he scored the game's only goal. But it was Heinen, who recorded straight zeroes in all major statistical categories in his 8:10 of fourth-line ice time, who was named the third star. Given that Kapanen (No. 42) and Heinen (No. 43) are one number off, it was presumably an accident. Each team handles the three stars selection differently, and in most cases it's just a person or group of people who work for the home team picking the stars, it's not typically something all reporters vote on anymore. So my guess is that someone with the Islanders confused the two players. Congratulations to Heinen for the honor nonetheless.

• Kapanen was vindicated when Rodrigues chose him as the recipient of the postgame helmet, an achievement worthy of not one but two finger guns:

• Guentzel's secondary assist on Kapanen's goal extended his point streak to eight games, a career high.

• The Penguins were outhit, 29-20. Zach Aston-Reese led with six hits.

• Things got a little chaotic midway through the third. Matt Martin made contact with Jarry, and just about every Penguin on the ice came to Jarry's defense. Crosby and Guentzel teamed up to contain Casey Cizikas, Martin sent Kris Letang's helmet into orbit, Cal Clutterbuck put Marcus Pettersson in a chokehold for some reason:

"I think for us to stand up for each other, win those 1-0 games, I think it shows a lot about our team," Guentzel said after the game.

While all that was going on, Boyle was standing up on the bench just whacking his stick across the boards, looking like he wanted to be out there. At the next TV timeout after Martin was set free from the box, Boyle approached him and the two exchanged some words until the officials came over.

• The Penguins only had one power play and failed to score on it. They now have an 11.9% success rate on the man advantage, good (?) enough for 30th in the league. The Golden Knights (10.9%) and Islanders (10.2%) are the only two teams to rank lower.

• The Penguins' penalty kill was 2-for-2, raising the success rate to 90.2%.

• The Penguins are the seventh-best team in the league on the road now, with a 5-2-2 record.

• According to my quick guesstimation, Rodrigues leads the team in pucks given away to fans during warmups. It feels like he spends half of warmups doing that. One game they're going to run out before the end of warmups, and it's going to be because Rodrigues wanted to make sure everyone in the lower bowl went home with a souvenir. A man of the people.

• The Islanders were heavily depleted. Forwards Josh Bailey, Anders Lee, Ross Johnston and Kieffer Bellows and defensemen Adam Pelech, Andy Greene and Zdeno Chara are all on the COVID list, while forward Brock Nelson and defenseman Ryan Pulock are out with injuries. 

• The Islanders opened the brand-new UBS Arena with a four-game homestand, concluding with this Penguins game. They scored a total of three goals in the homestand and are now on an eight-game losing streak.

• The new UBS Arena is beautiful, all the brick still gives it character like some older buildings. It's definitely not as loud as Nassau Coliseum, but there was still a great atmosphere, even with the slump the team is in. The fans were into it and loud, like when they were booing the Islanders' power play.

• Before warmups the videoboard here did a "look up cam," which was funnier than the usual things you see on the screen during that time at other buildings, like the team logos or ads. The camera would zero in on one fan either on their phone or staring off into space, and a timer would start that would stop when the fan realized they were on the screen. The record tonight was something like 30 seconds.

• The new arena's press box has a soft serve machine, probably the lone bright spot here in this opening homestand.

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics

THE THREE STARS

As selected at PPG Paints Arena:

1. Tristan Jarry, Penguins
2. Ilya Sorokin, Islanders
3. Danton Heinen, Penguins

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE INJURIES

• Forward Evgeni Malkin is expected to miss the first two months of the season while recovering from his knee surgery. He has been skating with Ty Hennes.

• Forward Bryan Rust left tonight's game during warmups and is being evaluated for a lower-body injury.

THE LINEUPS

Sullivan’s lines and pairings:

Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Evan Rodrigues
Jason Zucker - Jeff Carter - Kasperi Kapanen
Dominik Simon - Brian Boyle - Danton Heinen
Zach Aston-Reese - Teddy Blueger - Brock McGinn

Brian Dumoulin - Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson - John Marino
Mike Matheson - Chad Ruhwedel

And for Barry Trotz's Islanders:

Richard Panik - Mathew Barzal - Zach Parise
Anthony Beauvillier - Jean-Gabriel Pageau - Kyle Palmieri
Andy Andreoff - Otti Koivula - Oliver Wahlstrom
Matt Martin - Casey Cizikas - Cal Clutterbuck

Robin Salo - Scott Mayfield
Thomas Hickey - Noah Dobson
Sebastian Aho - Grant Hutton

THE SCHEDULE

The Penguins will host the Canadiens at PPG Paints Arena on Saturday at 7 p.m.

THE CONTENT

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