The Pittsburgh Penguins will place goaltender Tristan Jarry on waivers at 2 p.m. Wednesday.
That planned transaction was announced by the team via one of its social media accounts just as a practice session in Cranberry began. Jarry as well as forward Cody Glass were not present for the session.
There was no immediate word on Glass’ status.
A two-time All-Star, Jarry has largely struggled this season. Appearing in 21 games, he has an 8-7-4 record, a 3.32 goals against average and an .886 save percentage.
During a 4-2 home loss to the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday, Jarry made 14 saves on 17 shots.
“Yeah, it’s been tough,” Jarry said following Tuesday’s loss. “It’s just one of those things where you have to keep going. You have to keep being better every day, and you have to keep working hard. I think hard work will always persevere and get you out of things. So, I think just working hard and focusing on the little things that you could do better every day, it’ll help you every day.”
Jarry’s woes were so dire at the start of the season that management opted to assign him to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League (AHL) for two weeks in late October and early November.
Jarry, 29, is in the second year of a five-year contract extension with a salary cap hit of $5.375 million. That contract was one of the first major transactions president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas orchestrated when he took control of the club in the 2022 offseason.
Should Jarry go unclaimed by the NHL’s other 31 teams by 2 p.m. Thursday, he will be eligible to be assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton though such a maneuver would offer only limited benefit with regards to the salary cap. Per Puckpedia, the Penguins would save only $1.15 million of Jarry’s salary cap hit with such a transaction.
A second-round pick (No. 44 overall) in 2013, Jarry has been on the team’s NHL roster in some capacity dating back to the 2016-17 season and has served as the club’s primary starter since the 2020-21 campaign.
While he has had some success such as being selected to a pair of All-Star games, his career has been pockmarked by injuries and inconsistency.
• Most famously — or infamously — he struggled badly during a first-round playoff series with the New York Islanders in 2021. The Penguins lost that series 4-2, with Jarry posting a 3.18 goals against average and an .888 save percentage.
• Jarry was limited to a single game during a first-round playoff loss to the New York Rangers due to a broken left foot. He appeared in Game 7 of that series, making 26 saves on 30 shots in a 4-3 overtime loss.
• Throughout the second half of the 2022-23 season, various injuries hobbled Jarry as he missed 17 of the team’s final 45 games. Due in part to his absences, the Penguins missed the postseason for the first time since 2006.
• During the final weeks of the 2023-24 campaign, as the Penguins made a furious but futile push for a playoff berth, Jarry served as the team’s backup to journeyman Alex Nedeljkovic for the last 13 games of the regular season.