2022-23 Season In Review: Tristan Jarry

Vitals

Player: Tristan Jarry

Born: April 29, 1995 (28 years old)

Height: 6’2”

Weight: 194 pounds

Hometown: Surrey, British Columbia, Canada

Catches: Left

Draft: Pittsburgh Penguins, 2013 draft, second round, 14th pick (44th overall)

2022-23 Statistics: 47 games played, 24-13-7 record, 2.90 GAA, .909 SV%, two shutouts

Contract Status: Jarry is an unrestricted free agent this offseason.

Fun fact: Jarry ended the season tied with Matt Murray for the third-most wins in Penguins history (117.)

Hidden stat: Jarry favored playing at PPG Paints (13-7-4, .913 SV%, 2.79 GAA) rather than on the road (11-6-3, .905%, .905 GAA.) Splits from Hockey Reference.

Monthly splits and story of the season

(via Yahoo Sports)

The story of Jarry’s season gets even clearer when you slice it in half around the January 2 Winter Classic against the Boston Bruins at Fenway Park, where Jarry suffered a lower-body injury, after which he played just two games in about a month.

Before the Winter Classic, Jarry was 15-5-4, with a .917 SV% and 2.78 GAA, through 24 starts.

Following his return from injury in February, he was 8-8-2 with a .890 SV% and 3.26 GAA through 23 starts.

Jarry missed seven games after the Winter Classic, but looked solid when he came back for two games (he made 44 saves in his return, a 4-1 win on January 20 over the Ottawa Senators.) Then he was out again for almost a full month due to an upper-body injury.

This time, his return was not as successful.

“I was playing with a lot of injuries, playing through a lot. So it was tough,” Jarry said at the end of the season (h/t Pittsburgh Hockey Now’s Dan Kingerski.) “It’s tough to get practices and tough to tough to get consistent gameplay. And it was just a tough season altogether for me.”

The Pens goaltender did not specify how he was injured, but said whatever he was struggling with would not require surgery. Either way, his movement was visibly limited in the latter half of the season. That, in addition to questionable puck management decisions, became a noticeable weak spot for the Penguins as they clung to their tenuous spot in the Eastern Conference wild card race.

Jarry ended the campaign by allowing two goals in a span of just 30 seconds in one of the most crushing Penguins defeats in recent memory, the 5-2 home loss to the tanking Chicago Blackhawks which ended this season’s playoff hopes.

Regular season 5v5 advanced stats

Data via Natural Stat Trick. The ranking is out of 40 NHL goalies who were on the ice for at least 1,500 minutes last season.

Shots against/60: 31.07 (12th)

Saves/60: 28.52 (11th)

Save percentage: 0.918 (20th)

High-danger shots against/60: 8.05 (25th)

High-danger saves/60: 6.53 (28th)

High-danger save percentage: 0.811 (30th)

• Although the Penguins were middle-of-the-pack among NHL teams in limiting high-danger opportunities against, Jarry struggled to suppress those chances as he struggled in the spring.

Charts

Jarry’s inconsistency on high-danger saves comes up again. Here we see the overall dip in expected wins and saves from his 2021-22 campaign.

Here’s a peek at where those high-danger chances were coming from. Jarry struggled to hold back teams when they got grade-A opportunities right in front of the net.

Breaking it down further, it was specifically wrist and snap shots from down low, likely because of their quick release and requirement of sudden reactions, which gave injury-hampered Jarry the most trouble.

Here we can see more visual evidence of the difference between Jarry’s first half of the season versus his performance after his return. The spike in expected goals following his second return from injury is particularly telling.

Highlights

Jarry’s strong start to the campaign was highlighted by a 32-save shutout of the Jets in Winnipeg on November 19.

Jarry recorded an assist in October...

...and flashed some highlight-reel saves throughout the rest of the season.

Bottom Line

Jarry had one of the stronger season starts of his career, which unfortunately did not last. The Penguins needed a healthier, more consistent season from their starting goaltender. Unfortunately for both Jarry and the Pens, they did not get one. Still, those early months show why the Penguins have continued to hope Jarry will shine as the team’s starter.

Ideal 2023-24

Jarry’s injuries have been one of the Penguins’ central problems over the past two seasons. A healthy year could help him string together a full campaign with the kind of steadiness he showed in the first half of the 2022-23 campaign.

According to Elliotte Friedman’s 32 Thoughts Podcast (h/t Nick Horwat of the Hockey News) Jarry has reportedly said that he wants five to six seasons on his next deal. Any team giving him that kind of term would be making a bet on his future health and consistency being better than what he’s been through for the past few seasons.