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Another Jarry good defensive performance

December 13, 2019, 7:59 AM ET [85 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Last night’s game was incredibly on brand for the 2019-20 Pittsburgh Penguins. Surprise injury/illness? Check. Great defensive performance? Check. Excellent Tristan Jarry performance? Check. Jake Guentzel on the scoresheet? Check.

Evgeni Malkin was a surprise scratch with an illness leaving the team pretty bare as far as high quality offensive options. The result was a 1-0 game with Tristan Jarry turning aside 17 shots and Bryan Rust continuing to ride his career high shooting percentage to a game winning goal in overtime.




It wasn’t a pretty setup, but it was a clever move by Bryan Rust. I’m sure battling against Sidney Crosby year after year in practice will help you learn a few tricks of the trade. The stick lift Rust used is such a classic Crosby move and I have no doubt Rust has been on the wrong end of that in practice at some point in his time with the Penguins courtesy of 87. It was a great move to create something on what was a broken play. The Penguins had a group of top-nine tweeners playing wing this year and desperately needed contributions from them to be a good team this year. Bryan Rust has definitely stepped up to the plate. Rust is at 2.62 points per 60 at 5v5 on the year which is way higher than his career high of 1.7. It’s OK if Rust regresses. He stepped up in a time when the Penguins really needed it and the standings points earned aren’t going to get taken away.

Tristan Jarry is the #1 reason the Penguins are where they are right now. His 5v5 save percentage is a ludicrous .960 which is best in the league. His HDSV% at 5v5 is .873 which is fourth best among goalies with 10 starts. His goals saved above average is 11.41 and only Connor Hellebuyck (14.78) and Darcy Kuemper (13.01) are better. His play has been tremendous. He’s earning the starts he’s been given. It is a no brainer to keep playing him. Even if Matt Murray was playing average instead of bad it would still make sense to ride the hot hand. You have a goalie performing among the best in the league at the moment. The caveat is it is a 13 game sample so we don’t have a lot of information to confidently predict where things are going. We do know his play at the moment is awesome. When his play dips you can reassess. Right now he has three shutouts in his last four games.

Up next for the Penguins are the Los Angeles Kings. Malkin should be extra motivated to get healthy so he can play against the team he’s been hypothetically traded to 100 times over the past decade.

Thanks for reading!
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