• Player Overview
• What We Know
• Comparables
• Projection

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Player Overview

Since being selected 44th overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins a decade ago, Tristan Jarry has remained with the organization.

After winning two WHL championships and a Memorial Cup with the Edmonton Oil Kings, Jarry made the jump to professional hockey for the 2015-16 season. However, he found himself behind the likes of Marc-Andre Fleury, Matt Murray, and later Casey DeSmith on the Penguins’ depth chart. But after spending the majority of four years with the AHL’s Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins, Jarry made a full-time jump to the NHL for the 2019-20 season.

Since joining the Penguins, Jarry has seen mixed results. He’s been somewhat notorious for his inconsistency, seeming to run hot-and-cold, along with allowing bad goals at some key times.

Coming off a really strong 2021-22 season, Jarry saw a decline in his performance this year, especially in the back half of the season.

He gave a pretty ambiguous response to his play in the back half, saying he was dealing with injury trouble. However, he also noted it’s something that won’t be addressed by surgery this offseason.

Now at 28 years old, Jarry is set to become an unrestricted free agent for the first time. What he does have going for him is that you could argue there’s not really a single high-end starter on the market, which could drive up his value.

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What We Know

• Jarry noted he does hope to remain in Pittsburgh and was reportedly looking for a 5 or 6-year deal on his next contract during the season.
• However, new general manager Kyle Dubas was known to opt for short-term solutions in net with the Toronto Maple Leafs, rather than signing a long-term starter.
• Dubas also didn’t commit to attempting to re-sign Jarry, noting he’ll speak to the coaching staff and ‘get a real scope of who’s going to be available.’

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Comparables

If we look at the goalies who received deals six years or longer (around a similar age and amount of NHL experience) generally, they’ve all posted better numbers than Jarry in their contract year. Listed are goalies with between 100 and 300 regular games played (Jarry sits at 206 GP), and between 26 and 30 years old when they entered the first year of the deal.

6/7 YEARS

Player	Age at first year of deal	First Year Of Deal	SV% in Signing Year	% of Games Started in Signing Year	SV% over Career	Contract	Adjusted to $83.5M cap
Tristan Jarry	28	2023	909 (47GP)	57%	914 (206GP)
Corey Crawford	30	2014	926 (30 GP)	63%	913 (152 GP)	$6.00M 6 years	$7.26M 6 years
Cory Schneider	29	2015	921 (45GP)	55%	925 (143GP)	$6.00M 7 years	$7.02M 7 years
*Jordan Binnington	28	2021	908 (19GP)	–	915 (102GP)	$6.00M 6 years	$6.15M 6 years
Jacob Markstrom	30	2021	918 (43GP)	77%	911 (272GP)	$6.00M 6 years	$6.15M 6 years
Philipp Grubauer	30	2021	922 (40GP)	71%	920 (214GP)	$5.90M 6 years	$6.04M 6 years
Martin Jones	28	2018	912 (65GP)	79%	916 (164GP)	$5.75M 6 years	$6.04M 6 years
Devan Dubnyk	29	2015	929 (58GP)	71%	914 (231GP)	$4.33M 6 years	$5.06M 6 years

The only goalie with somewhat comparable stats would be Jordan Binnington. That said, his deal was also signed midway through the season, with that .908 SV% coming from a smaller sample of play, meaning his stats from past years, which were higher, likely played more of a factor. He was also only 18 months removed from leading the St. Louis Blues to a Stanley Cup win.

Martin Jones’ numbers also weren’t wildly far off, but he did take on a much larger role in the year he signed his extension with the Sharks at 65 games, compared to Jarry’s 47 games. Generally, most goalies signing for six years are up around a .920 SV% in the year in which they sign the new deal.

So while Jarry had positioned himself reasonably well for a six-year extension after last year’s .919 SV%, it now seems pretty unlikely.

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5 YEARS

One difference between the goalies who signed six-year deals versus five-year deals difference was the percentage of starts in their contract year. Many of the goalies who signed five-year deals started around 50% of games in their contract year, rather the goalies who signed six-year deals, often playing 70% or more of games.

Player	Age at first year of deal	First Year Of Deal	SV%/GP in Signing Year	% of Games Started in Signing Year	SV%/GP over Career	Contract	Adjusted to $83.5M cap
Tristan Jarry	28	2023	909 (47GP)	57%	914 (206GP)
Braden Holtby	26	2015	923 (73GP)	89%	921 (178GP)	$6.10M 5 years	$7.13M 5 years
Frederik Andersen	26	2016	919 (43GP)	52%	918 (125GP)	$5.00M 5 years	$5.72M 5 years
Robin Lehner	29	2020	920 (36GP)	51%	918 (301GP)	$5.00M 5 years	$5.12M 5 years
Jack Campbell	30	2022	914 (49GP)	60%	916 (135GP)	$5.00M 5 years	$5.06M 5 years

A five-year deal seems more likely for Jarry, but even that doesn’t seem like a lock. Most goalies who have gotten a five-year deal still have a similarly high save percentage in their contract year. Not listed due to limited experience, Elvis Merzlikins (61 career GP) and Thatcher Demko (62 career GP) also each had at least a .916 save percentage at their time of signing their respective five-year contracts recently.

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4 YEARS

Using goalies who signed their deal at three years older in determining a projection is flawed, but I wanted to include Semyon Varlamov’s deal here, based on the similarities.

Player	Age at first year of deal	First Year Of Deal	SV%/GP in Signing Year	% of Games Started in Signing Year	SV%/GP over Career	Contract	Adjusted to $83.5M cap
Tristan Jarry	28	2023	909 (47GP)	57%	914 (206GP)
Matt Murray	26	2020	899 (38GP)	54%	914 (199GP)	$6.25M 4 years	$6.40M 4 years
Linus Ullmark	28	2021	917 (20GP)	36%	912 (117GP)	$5.00M 4 years	$5.13M 4 years
Semyon Varlamov	31	2019	909 (49GP)	60%	916 (448GP)	$5.00M 4 years	$5.13M 4 years
Jake Allen	27	2017	920 (47GP)	57%	915 (99GP)	$4.35M 4 years	$4.84M 4 years

Varlamov posted the exact same save percentage in his contract year, while playing only two more games. Once again though, age plays a factor and typically, a team would be more willing to give a bigger contract to a 28-year-old goalie rather than a 31-year-old goalie.

The Matt Murray contract from 2020 is also one to highlight. Both Murray and Jarry posted .919 save percentages the season before their contract year, only to see their performance decline the next year. They also had the same career save percentage at the time of signing their contract. However, what Murray clearly had going for him was back-to-back Stanley Cups to start his career, which likely did drive up his price tag.

So even though there’s no direct comparable, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him get more than Varlamov (who was older) and Ullmark (who had a smaller sample size of play), but less than Murray. If he does go with a four-year deal rather than a five-year deal, we likely do see a higher cap hit, based on the minimized risk for the team with a shorter deal, possibly around $5.50M.

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However, while six years or more seems unlikely, we can also expect that a three-year deal or shorter is unlikely as well.

When a starting goalie has a chance to cash in on a long-term deal, they’ll usually take it (and as mentioned above, Jarry was reportedly looking for a five or six-year deal). Typically, when we see a two or three-year deal given out to a UFA goalie at a similar age and career GP, it’s not a starting goalie signing that deal.

Often, two or three year deals for a UFA goalie would be for a fringe starter, who may have played half his team’s games or less in his contract year and hasn’t solidified himself as a legitimate starter. Recently, we’ve seen those sorts of three-year deals for the likes of Alexandar Georgeiv, Vitek Vanecek, and Ville Husso, to name a few.

Despite his inconsistencies, Jarry is a undoubtedly a starter. However, there are a few examples of starters getting shorter deals, shown below.

2/3 Years

Player	Age at first year of deal	First Year Of Deal	SV%/GP in Signing Year	% of Games Started in Signing Year	SV%/GP over Career	Contract (1st year of deal)	Adjusted to $83.5M cap
Tristan Jarry	28	2023	909 (47GP)	57%	914 (206GP)
*Steve Mason	26	2014	915 (37GP)	–	906 (276GP)	$4.10M 3 years	$4.96M 3 years
Antti Raanta	29	2018	930 (47GP)	57%	922 (141GP)	$4.25M 3 years	$4.46M 3 years
Ben Bishop	29	2015	924 (63GP)	77%	920 (108GP)	$5.95M 2 years	$6.96M 2 years
Jontathan Bernier	27	2015	912 (58GP)	71%	916 (175GP)	$4.13M 2 years	$4.83M 2 years
Darcy Kuemper	29	2020	925 (55GP)	67%	916 (186GP)	$4.50M 2 years	$4.61M 2 years

Something that almost every one of these contracts have in common though is that they came after a goalie’s first season acting a starter. In the cases of Antti Raanta with a three-year deal, and Ben Bishop and Darcy Kuemper with their two-year deals, the netminders had no history of starting the bulk of a team’s games over multiple years, so it’s not surprising the team wouldn’t be committing long-term. With the netminders trending up, it made sense to take a short-term deal at a fair cap hit and bank on cashing in on a larger deal in a couple years. Then with Ben Bishop and Darcy Kuemper’s deals, the extensions were signed a year out from them even hitting free agency.

However, Jarry has been the Pittsburgh’s starter for three seasons now. There are so few examples where established starters opt for a shorter-term deal around Jarry’s age, meaning it’s unlikely we see him at three years or less.

I won’t even get into the one-year deals, because most of them were just Robin Lehner’s back-to-back-to-back one-year contracts signed each offseason from 2017-2019. Outside of Lehner, there really weren’t cases of UFA starters with similar experience around the same age signing one-year deals. Unless Jarry takes a short-term deal to bet on himself rebuilding his value and cashing in later, we’ll probably see him get more term.

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Projection

Given Jarry’s tough end to the year, it’s probably pretty unlikely that he gets a contract at six years or longer. Could someone give him that length of a deal at around a $5-6 million price tag, despite pretty average numbers in his contract year (like we saw with Binnington and Jones)? Sure, but it’s probably not the most likely outcome.

Term-wise, the clear most likely option is a four or five-year deal for Jarry. I’d lean towards a four-year deal, based on the comparable save percentages from other netminders, but the increase in scoring could be factored in as well, making Jarry’s .909 SV% more valuable than it would’ve been in recent years.

A four-year deal could warrant a higher cap hit, based on less risk without a fifth year. It wouldn’t be shocking to see it come in a bit higher than $5 million, potentially around $5.5 million or even as high as $6 million. But lower than $5M seems extremely unlikely.

If he does get a deal at five years, or even six years, we probably wouldn’t see the cap hit come in above $5M.

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So here are the final projections, with a four-year deal being most likely, followed by a five-year deal:

Term	Projected Cap hit	Maximum Cap Hit	Minimum Cap Hit
4 years	$5.50M	$6.00M	$5.00M
5 years	$5.00M	$6.00M	$5.00M

In descending order of likelihood, other less likely deals could be:

Term	Projected Cap hit	Maximum Cap Hit	Minimum Cap Hit
6 years	$5.00M	$6.00M	$5.00M
3 years	$5.00M	$6.00M	$5.00M
2 years	$4.50M	$5.00M	$4.00M