Things haven't always gone too well for Tristan Jarry at PPG Paints Arena this season, to say the least.

Before Tuesday, Jarry was just 4-5-2 at home this season, recording a .872 save percentage and a 3.55 goals-against average. While he wasn't great on the road, he was a serviceable goaltender, going 4-3-2 with a .903 save percentage and a 2.55 goals-against average prior to his latest stint in the NHL.

After particularly tough losses, it wasn't uncommon to hear smatterings of boos throughout the crowd when public address announcer Ryan Mill would announce the starting lineups and begin with, "In goal, No. 35 ... Tristan Jarry!"

Jarry -- and his teammates -- could hear those reactions.

"To be honest, I think before everything went down, when he was announced for the starting lineup, there was some negative reactions," Bryan Rust recalled to me after the Penguins' 3-2 overtime win over the Golden Knights on Tuesday.

Jarry made his first home start in nearly two months on Tuesday, his first since stopping 14 of 17 shots faced in a 4-2 loss to the Kraken on Jan. 14. 

In this game, there were no boos for Jarry in the starting lineup introductions, coming off a stellar first game back in the NHL in which he stopped 29 of 30 shots faced in a 3-1 win over the Wild on Sunday. 

On multiple occasions throughout the evening, chants of "JAR-RY! JAR-RY!" rung out through the arena after particularly big saves.

Jarry finished the game with 35 saves on 37 shots, conceding only a power-play goal to Pavel Dorofeyev and the tying goal to Noah Hanifin with only six seconds remaining in regulation. He stopped 18 shots in the third period alone as the Penguins were clinging to a one-goal lead.

Jarry heard the chants, and was appreciative in his usual even-keel way, declaring the reception "cool."

"I've been here for a long time now, so anytime you have that support by the fans and they're behind you, I think that brings a lot of confidence to me as well," Jarry added. "I think when they're standing behind me, it really helps."

The players in front of Jarry appreciated the chants of support for him, too.

"It's great," Erik Karlsson said. "You know, he's a great, great person. He works extremely hard at this game. He hasn't had the best of luck lately. I think over the course of his career, he's shown that he's a good goaltender in this league. He's had a little bit of a bump in the road, and it's nice to see him coming in."

Personality-wise, Karlsson said Jarry "hasn't changed one bit" through the difficult times, which he called "awesome to see."

"You know, it's easy to get down on yourself," Karlsson said. "But I think that he's come in here, and he believes in himself. He's the same person he was since last we saw him, and the last two games for us here, obviously he's proven that he's capable of winning games for us."

Rust, too, loved the ovations he heard for his goaltender after watching him work his way back up to the NHL.

"I think tonight, the fans gave him a warm welcome back," Rust said. "And I think that goes a long way. He was incredible in Minnesota. He made some unbelievable saves and was probably the reason why we won that game. You've got to give a whole ton of credit to him. He's been through it this year, but he's been working hard and just trying to keep his head down moving forward. I think it's awesome."

Jarry's still got a ways to go to prove that he can be a consistent option in net for the Penguins after his earlier struggles, but he put forth two great performances in Minnesota and here. Mike Sullivan isn't looking at these starts as anomalies, rather just Jarry "showing what he's capable of."

"He's got a long body of work here in Pittsburgh," Sullivan said. "That suggests strongly that he's a legitimate NHL goaltender, and we've never wavered from that. I've said that on so many different occasions, and I still believe that Jars is a real good goalie when he's playing up to his capabilities,"

Jarry said that in order to do that, he'll have to "make sure my practices are sharp, make sure my mental game is sharp."

So far, he's been able to do that, seemingly rejuvenated after the reset that his AHL stint provided.

• Unrelated to this game, but the NHL keeps going back further for what they consider the "record" for goals allowed on a first shot. Initially this season they said the data only went back to 2009-10, and that the 2011-12 Flyers held the record with 14. Now, the league. Now, the research goes back to 1996-97, and the 2000-01 Avalanche hold the record with 16 instances. The Penguins have done it 13 times this season.

• With Tommy Novak (lower-body, day-to-day) and Ryan Shea (upper-body, week-to-week) sidelined Danton Heinen and Ryan Graves got back into the lineup in their places.

• Crosby's two goals gives him multi-goal games against 31 different franchises in NHL history. The only opponent he's missing a multi-goal game against is Utah, which is a new franchise and not simply the Coyotes relocated.