Can Jarry answer the call in goal . . . if he gets it?
Canadiens have earned his respect
When the NHL paused its season in mid-March, Tristan Jarry retreated to the peace and quiet of his 60-acre barley farm in Sherwood Park, Alberta — an urban town about half-hour from Edmonton.
Locked down and far from any training facility, the 25-year-old Penguins goalie with quiet confidence bought a net online and got creative. His girlfriend, Hannah, tossed tennis balls. And to keep his stickhandling sharp, Jarry enlisted his two English Mastiffs, Diesel and Kitty.
“Diesel is a lot better,” Jarry said at training camp. “Kitty just kind of laid down and played dead.”
Oh, kind of like the Penguins in Game 3!
The vital signs aren’t encouraging. The Penguins lacked a pulse Wednesday night. They showed too many symptoms of a playoff pretender. And now they have beat a former MVP goalie named Carey Price on back-to-back days.
But one leader suggested folks hold off on shoveling dirt on this golden era.
“It’s not over,” Evgeni Malkin said Thursday. “Game [4 on Friday] is huge for us.”
It wasn’t quite Joe Namath guaranteeing a win. But, hey, it was something.
The Penguins are suddenly on the brink after losing Game 3 Wednesday against the Montreal Canadiens. Big changes are likely waiting if they lose one more game to the 24th-seeded team in the 24-team field.
Longtime Penguins players such as Malkin, Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang and Patric Hornqvist have been here before, facing elimination and eventually laughing about it at a Stanley Cup parade. But this feels different. This might be it for this Penguins core. There are no guarantees they will get a chance better. But they must beat the Canadiens Friday and Saturday just to stay alive.
“If we don’t play good, this should be the last game for us,” Malkin said. “We don’t want that. We rest like four months beforehand and we want to play more. We have a great team. We have a great organization. … We need to play right. [Wednesday], we lead, 3-1, and we stopped playing. And that’s not right.”
No, not much looked right for the Penguins in Game 3, other than back-to-back goals for their power play. They still took a two-goal lead before letting up. The Canadiens quickly tied it then won, 4-3, on a bad goal against Matt Murray. Coach Mike Sullivan acknowledged his team’s urgency is “not where it needs to be.”
“In Games 1 and 2, there was a lot to like about our overall team game. … We have to find the urgency in our game if we’re going to be at our best,” he said. “The stakes are high. There’s certainly no reason for us not to have it at this point.”
He won’t get much pushback on that statement in Pittsburgh.
Crosby, Malkin and Hornqvist all exuded calm in the 24 hours after a Game 3 loss. That might be a good thing. All that really matters is that when the puck drops on Game 4, they show a lot more fire than they did Wednesday.
Sullivan mum on lineup
Given what we saw in Game 3, one would hope Sullivan gives thought to switching his forward lines and changing his third defensive pair. And with the team in need of a spark, turning to Tristan Jarry in goal might be tempting.
Sullivan unsurprisingly declined to say if he would make changes for the 4 p.m. Friday game, but one comment was telling.
“Any time a coach or a group makes changes, there’s always an element of risk associated with it,” he said. “But one could argue there’s an element of risk associated with not making a change, as well.”
Sullivan sidestepped a question inquiring about his confidence in the third defensive pair of Jack Johnson and Justin Schultz, which has struggled in two of the three games. He replied, “I have a lot of confidence in our whole group.”
Just stay with it, Geno
Malkin has no goals in this series, and his lone assist came on the power play. His line, despite a slew of chances through three games, hasn’t punctured Price at 5-on-5. Sullivan talked to the center about “just staying with it.”
“Based on my experience of coaching elite players,” he said, “if they go through a few games where it’s a struggle to [score], sometimes all it takes is a goal to boost their confidence and get them excited about their game. … When something positive happens for them, it usually has an influence or impact on them.”
Malkin said the Canadiens have played “unbelievable” in front of Price, earning his respect. And he said Price is probably the league’s best goalie. He added that “maybe [we need] a little bit of good luck.”
Friendship ‘put on hold’
Hornqvist and Shea Weber grew up as players together in the Nashville organization, drafted by the Predators two years apart. After success for both in the Music City, the 30somethings have moved on to their second acts in the NHL.
Considering how much Hornqvist and Weber, the burly Canadiens blue-liner, have been jostling and jarring with each other, you might wonder if their friendship had soured. But Hornqvist flashed a big grin when asked about his old buddy.
“We have a great relationship off the ice. It’s put on hold right now,” the veteran winger said.