There were two truths I'd accepted entering the third period of the Penguins' eventual 4-2 Thanksgiving Eve victory over the Sabres here at PPG Paints Arena:
1. The Buffalo attack wasn't about to abate. 2. Tristan Jarry wasn't about to be beaten.
And almost as if to reinforce both points, these were the remarkable final few ticks poking into the final minute, with the home team holding a one-goal lead, and I'm afraid I'll have to insist that everyone MUST press play before proceeding with the reading:
That's some serious holiday theater, with the traditional homecoming crowd and all, huh?
Three official saves in six official seconds ...
NHL.COM
... plus the Connor Dewar empty-netter, plus the throbbing chants of 'JAR-RY! JAR-RY!' that'd follow, plus the hugs and handshakes at the horn, plus the two points this team's been seeking since a dozen days ago in Sweden, all squeezed into a single sequence.
"I thought he was outstanding, especially in the second half of the game," Dan Muse would say of Jarry, who'd wind up with 29 saves, an unwieldy 17 of those needed in the third. "He saw a lot more than we wanted him to see. Through the first half of the second period, there weren't many scoring chances for them. I thought we controlled play. And then it flipped, which isn't easy for a goalie. You go a lot of the period there without seeing too much and then, suddenly, you see a lot. You could really tell that was a huge part of the game there, where he was able to help us weather the storm."
Right. Only those clouds would still thicken. If anything, the Sabres, now 9-10-4 and back in the Eastern Conference basement but still blessed with an abundance of offensive skill, revved it up further for the third.
"I think we'd like to limit some of those chances that he saw," Muse would say of Jarry. "And that one at the end of the game, obviously, that was a massive save there on the backside."
He meant the initial one on Jason Zucker, though he easily could've referenced that in the plural, as his counterpart, Lindy Ruff, did when asked about the sequence over on the Buffalo side: “I thought Jarry made a couple of tremendous saves or else we tie the game.”
That the Sabres didn't, and this despite failing to get the physical best of a goaltender who'd just missed three weeks to an undisclosed lower-body injury, was a testament not only to Jarry but also, as he'd tell me, a ton of others supporting him while the team flew overseas without him:
"It's huge, obviously. That's what I want," he'd reply when I asked how much it meant to rebound so soon. "I kinda want to come back seamlessly, and I think the training staff and the coaches, they all did a great job. When you're able to integrate back into the team like that, I think, it helps a lot. And with the team being away, you want to stay sharp. All the injured guys and the extras, we did a good job."
That made an impression on Muse, too.
"He looked real good the last couple of days," he'd say of Jarry's practices Monday and Tuesday. "So it wasn’t a surprise. He put in the work he needed to and came in ready to go."
Did someone say surprise?
Yeah, I'd say it's about time we all had a quality talk about that.
And let's start with another angle on the Zucker save, one that far more fully illustrates that he'd been wholly aware of Zucker's positioning even as that pass was emerging from the left corner and, most pivotal for me, that he's among the best in the world at mechanically moving his leg pads from side to side, a stance I've taken forever:
SPORTSNET PITTSBURGH
Take that not so much from me, but from the goaltending experts I've asked about this: When Jarry's on, he keeps himself big, he makes himself square, he bounces right back up on his blades, and he executes it so smoothly and splatter-free that it can look routine.
It sure as hell isn't.
That's always been what I've watched with him, for better or worse, whether I'm right or wrong. When I see this, I've got close to zero doubt he's all the way there.
So no, this isn't a surprise. None of it. Not to me, anyway.
This past March in St. Paul, Minn., the day he returned from his two-month exile -- and that's exactly what that was, make no mistake -- to Wilkes-Barre, he was nothing short of excellent in winning over the Wild, 3-1, and I wrote as much from the scene. I felt awkward doing so, aware of how often he'd disappointed, but went ahead with it, anyway. And, wonderfully enough, he'd proceed to play a prominent role in the Penguins finishing that season 10-5-2.
Then it continued through a training camp that'd been labeled by Kyle Dubas an open competition among four goaltenders, with the other three being rookies. And it continued through the preseason. And it continued after the season opener at Madison Square Garden went to Arturs Silovs. And it's continuing to this day, with the sun rising on the NHL's statistical leaders to show Jarry eighth in the league with a .914 save percentage, in addition to a 6-2 record, a 2.53 goals-against average and a shutout.
What's changed?
He's spoken at length about the powerful personal impact of him and wife Hannah having their first child, Bennett, in April, a month after that St. Paul game. He's spoken of the requisite shift in priorities to being a dad. He's spoken how it's reminded him not to take every shot, every goal, every lapse, every loss with out-sized importance.
Maybe that's it. I'd love to think it is. Makes an already uplifting tale as wholesome as can be.
But I know this with certainty: He's not the same. He's smiling almost incessantly, which hadn't been the case. He pipes up. He's positive.
And, most pertinent to this broader point, he's pushed through some sort of ceiling on the ice that's afforded him a consistency that'd never previously been there. Which has led, I can also safely say, to a confidence in his work -- from his teammates, from his coaches -- that'd never previously been there. They for-real believe in him.
I asked Bryan Rust after this game:
“He’s awesome," Rust would reply. "Obviously, he’s been through it a bit and, I think, to see him come back this year and play well, have an injury, come back, have a huge game for us ... he's probably the reason why we won that game. I think that’s big. He can be a big part of this team moving forward."
That's right, by the way. Moving forward. There's absolutely zero indication from the inside to support that Jarry's being traded, and I'm not guessing at that. Dubas' outlook on the goaltending all along has been to carve quality from quantity, and he's only now reaping plenty of both. The cap's no longer an issue, Jarry's out of exile, and things are just plain different.
Anyone else believing yet?
Even if it isn't all the way?
Here's one potential plus for anyone who does: When that pass came out of that corner, I'd seen Zucker standing where he was, I'd known Zucker can finish that in his figurative sleep, I'd even processed that Zucker had been pivotal in both of Buffalo's goals, scoring one and setting up the other ... and it never so much as crossed my mind that he'd score this one.
THE ASYLUM
DK: Anyone else believe in Jarry?
There were two truths I'd accepted entering the third period of the Penguins' eventual 4-2 Thanksgiving Eve victory over the Sabres here at PPG Paints Arena:
1. The Buffalo attack wasn't about to abate.
2. Tristan Jarry wasn't about to be beaten.
And almost as if to reinforce both points, these were the remarkable final few ticks poking into the final minute, with the home team holding a one-goal lead, and I'm afraid I'll have to insist that everyone MUST press play before proceeding with the reading:
That's some serious holiday theater, with the traditional homecoming crowd and all, huh?
Three official saves in six official seconds ...
NHL.COM
... plus the Connor Dewar empty-netter, plus the throbbing chants of 'JAR-RY! JAR-RY!' that'd follow, plus the hugs and handshakes at the horn, plus the two points this team's been seeking since a dozen days ago in Sweden, all squeezed into a single sequence.
"I thought he was outstanding, especially in the second half of the game," Dan Muse would say of Jarry, who'd wind up with 29 saves, an unwieldy 17 of those needed in the third. "He saw a lot more than we wanted him to see. Through the first half of the second period, there weren't many scoring chances for them. I thought we controlled play. And then it flipped, which isn't easy for a goalie. You go a lot of the period there without seeing too much and then, suddenly, you see a lot. You could really tell that was a huge part of the game there, where he was able to help us weather the storm."
Right. Only those clouds would still thicken. If anything, the Sabres, now 9-10-4 and back in the Eastern Conference basement but still blessed with an abundance of offensive skill, revved it up further for the third.
"I think we'd like to limit some of those chances that he saw," Muse would say of Jarry. "And that one at the end of the game, obviously, that was a massive save there on the backside."
He meant the initial one on Jason Zucker, though he easily could've referenced that in the plural, as his counterpart, Lindy Ruff, did when asked about the sequence over on the Buffalo side: “I thought Jarry made a couple of tremendous saves or else we tie the game.”
That the Sabres didn't, and this despite failing to get the physical best of a goaltender who'd just missed three weeks to an undisclosed lower-body injury, was a testament not only to Jarry but also, as he'd tell me, a ton of others supporting him while the team flew overseas without him:
"It's huge, obviously. That's what I want," he'd reply when I asked how much it meant to rebound so soon. "I kinda want to come back seamlessly, and I think the training staff and the coaches, they all did a great job. When you're able to integrate back into the team like that, I think, it helps a lot. And with the team being away, you want to stay sharp. All the injured guys and the extras, we did a good job."
That made an impression on Muse, too.
"He looked real good the last couple of days," he'd say of Jarry's practices Monday and Tuesday. "So it wasn’t a surprise. He put in the work he needed to and came in ready to go."
Did someone say surprise?
Yeah, I'd say it's about time we all had a quality talk about that.
And let's start with another angle on the Zucker save, one that far more fully illustrates that he'd been wholly aware of Zucker's positioning even as that pass was emerging from the left corner and, most pivotal for me, that he's among the best in the world at mechanically moving his leg pads from side to side, a stance I've taken forever:
SPORTSNET PITTSBURGH
Take that not so much from me, but from the goaltending experts I've asked about this: When Jarry's on, he keeps himself big, he makes himself square, he bounces right back up on his blades, and he executes it so smoothly and splatter-free that it can look routine.
It sure as hell isn't.
That's always been what I've watched with him, for better or worse, whether I'm right or wrong. When I see this, I've got close to zero doubt he's all the way there.
So no, this isn't a surprise. None of it. Not to me, anyway.
This past March in St. Paul, Minn., the day he returned from his two-month exile -- and that's exactly what that was, make no mistake -- to Wilkes-Barre, he was nothing short of excellent in winning over the Wild, 3-1, and I wrote as much from the scene. I felt awkward doing so, aware of how often he'd disappointed, but went ahead with it, anyway. And, wonderfully enough, he'd proceed to play a prominent role in the Penguins finishing that season 10-5-2.
Then it continued through a training camp that'd been labeled by Kyle Dubas an open competition among four goaltenders, with the other three being rookies. And it continued through the preseason. And it continued after the season opener at Madison Square Garden went to Arturs Silovs. And it's continuing to this day, with the sun rising on the NHL's statistical leaders to show Jarry eighth in the league with a .914 save percentage, in addition to a 6-2 record, a 2.53 goals-against average and a shutout.
What's changed?
He's spoken at length about the powerful personal impact of him and wife Hannah having their first child, Bennett, in April, a month after that St. Paul game. He's spoken of the requisite shift in priorities to being a dad. He's spoken how it's reminded him not to take every shot, every goal, every lapse, every loss with out-sized importance.
Maybe that's it. I'd love to think it is. Makes an already uplifting tale as wholesome as can be.
But I know this with certainty: He's not the same. He's smiling almost incessantly, which hadn't been the case. He pipes up. He's positive.
And, most pertinent to this broader point, he's pushed through some sort of ceiling on the ice that's afforded him a consistency that'd never previously been there. Which has led, I can also safely say, to a confidence in his work -- from his teammates, from his coaches -- that'd never previously been there. They for-real believe in him.
I asked Bryan Rust after this game:
“He’s awesome," Rust would reply. "Obviously, he’s been through it a bit and, I think, to see him come back this year and play well, have an injury, come back, have a huge game for us ... he's probably the reason why we won that game. I think that’s big. He can be a big part of this team moving forward."
That's right, by the way. Moving forward. There's absolutely zero indication from the inside to support that Jarry's being traded, and I'm not guessing at that. Dubas' outlook on the goaltending all along has been to carve quality from quantity, and he's only now reaping plenty of both. The cap's no longer an issue, Jarry's out of exile, and things are just plain different.
Anyone else believing yet?
Even if it isn't all the way?
Here's one potential plus for anyone who does: When that pass came out of that corner, I'd seen Zucker standing where he was, I'd known Zucker can finish that in his figurative sleep, I'd even processed that Zucker had been pivotal in both of Buffalo's goals, scoring one and setting up the other ... and it never so much as crossed my mind that he'd score this one.
That's fun. Give it a try.
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