Rangers light up Tristan Jarry, rout the Penguins in their 2024-25 season opener

Matt Vensel, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Oct 9, 2024

Published in Hockey

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PITTSBURGH — In one crease Wednesday was a star goaltender who reportedly turned down an $88 million offer from his team — and you could argue was justified in doing so.

In the other was a goalie who might have been starting the 2024-25 season opener only because Pittsburgh’s other goalie suffered an unfortunate preseason injury.

The wide gap between the Penguins and the New York Rangers was apparent in Wednesday’s season opener at PPG Paints Arena, which the Penguins lost, 6-0.

But the discrepancy between the pipes is a good place to start after that clunker.

Igor Shesterkin, the former Vezina winner who is the backbone of the Blueshirts, was not fazed by the fading stars of the Penguins nor the rowdy fans who tried to rattle him with “Igor!” chants, only to give up when the game got out of hand.

It took less than 20 minutes for the ire of the home crowd to be redirected toward Tristan Jarry, who failed to give the Penguins the saves they had to needed early.

During training camp and the preseason, Jarry had been battling Alex Nedeljkovic for the right to start this game. But Nedeljkovic got injured Sept. 30, putting an end to the goalie controversy for now. Jarry regained Pittsburgh’s crease by default.

Still, Jarry was handed a chance to reclaim the starting gig. The Penguins have been pumping Jarry up, saying that after a disappointing 2023-24 campaign which he finished on the bench, he showed up for camp in the best shape of his NHL career.

That may be true, but he looked like the same old Jarry against the Rangers, who are a popular pick to win the Metropolitan Division for the second straight year.

The Penguins fell behind 3-0 during the first period — a deficit they couldn’t dig themselves out of, not with arguably the NHL’s best goalie in midseason form.

Jarry let it in the first shot he faced this season, a tricky Sam Carrick deflection.

The Penguins responded well, outplaying the Rangers for much of the period. But Shesterkin was razor sharp from the jump, shutting down several quality chances. Two were off the sticks of summer pickups Anthony Beauvillier and Cody Glass.

The Rangers pumped in a pair of goals late in the period to blow the game open.

Former No. 1 overall pick Alexis Lafreniere scored a beauty, toe-dragging the puck around a sliding Marcus Pettersson before slamming a shot between Jarry’s legs.

In the final minute of the first, the Penguins got caught with tired bodies on the ice after Drew O’Connor iced the puck in frustration. Sidney Crosby lost the ensuing faceoff, the Penguins couldn’t get a clear and Chris Kreider scored from the slot.

That was a breakdown in front of Jarry, with a few defenders well out of position. But the Penguins needed a save to stop the bleeding, and Jarry didn’t deliver it.

That back-breaker provoked fans at PPG Paints Arena to lustily boo their team.

The Rangers made it 4-0 midway through the second period. Filip Chytil lifted a shot over Jarry’s right shoulder after a Penguins breakdown defending the rush.

To his credit, Jarry stuck with it and came up with quite a few difficult saves as his teammates began to look disengaged. He stopped Kaapo Kakko on a breakaway and sprawled across his crease for stops, including one shorthanded glove save.

But the Rangers tacked on two more goals in the final 10 minutes. Kreider buried a shorthanded breakaway, then Vincent Trocheck increased their lead to 6-0.

Shesterkin, meanwhile, made 29 saves to shut out the Penguins in their opener.

Ice chips

— Rutger McGroarty made his NHL debut at PPG Paints Arena. He got just more than 12 minutes of ice time, recorded one shot and was a minus-1 in the loss

— Erik Karlsson played in the opener after missing two weeks of training camp.

— The Penguins in the first period were successful on a coach’s challenge that wiped out a Rangers goal, which would have made it 2-0. The Rangers were offside.

— Jarry started the Penguins’ season opener for the fifth time. That is the third most in team history. Only Marc-Andre Fleury and Tom Barrasso are ahead of him.

— The Penguins were without forwards Bryan Rust and Blake Lizotte. Rust took part in the morning skate, so he seems likely to return to the lineup in the coming days. Lizotte, meanwhile, still hasn’t skated since suffering a concussion Sept. 29.

— Valtteri Puustinen and Ryan Shea were the healthy scratches for Pittsburgh.

Stat N'at

3 — power plays wasted by the Penguins, who also gave up a short-handed goal.

Coming up

The Penguins will get right back at it Thursday, when they visit the Red Wings in Detroit. That game has an 8 p.m. ET puck-drop. It is the start of a three-game trip.

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