PITTSBURGH — An ill-timed penalty against Bryan Rust meant all eyes turned to Tristan Jarry.

With the Penguins clinging to a 3-2 lead over the Toronto Maple Leafs in the waning minutes of regulation on Saturday night, a couple of All-Star forwards in Auston Matthews and John Tavares peppered Jarry with wrist shots. From the top of the crease, Jarry turned aside both attempts with ease, two of his 25 saves before Blake Lizotte poured in an empty-net goal.

The Penguins ultimately secured a 5-2 win at PPG Paints Arena, the team's fifth in six contests and Jarry's fourth consecutive victory when starting between the pipes. Never one to bring too much attention to himself, Jarry expressed a good deal of satisfaction with the Penguins' latest victory — as well as a little bit toward his own play.

"I think it's just about being better every day," Jarry said. "I said that at the beginning [of the year] when things weren't going well for me that I just wanted to be better. I think being able to string together a couple wins really helps the confidence and I think it really helps the team.

"In the end, this is a team game, and we all want two points."

When Jarry was in the midst of his well-documented struggles earlier in the year, though, it didn't matter terribly much how the rest of the Penguins were faring. After making three October starts, Jarry owned an ugly 5.47 goals-against average (GAA) and was stopping below 84% of shots on net — both figures well below league averages.

Nearly two months ago, Jarry found himself back with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on a conditioning loan, marking his first action in the American Hockey League (AHL) since April 2019. Much more recently than that, back on July 1, 2023, Jarry inked a five-year extension that ran through the 2027-28 season with an annual cap hit of $5.375 million.

Since signing that deal, Jarry has dealt with injuries, lost the net down the stretch of the 2023-24 campaign to backup Alex Nedeljkovic and, of course, had to head back to the AHL for a couple weeks. But since returning to the club in mid-November, Jarry has slowly — but steadily — inched closer to the form that's twice made him an All-Star Game selection.

Teammates like Bryan Rust commended Jarry for keeping and building upon his confidence during as challenging a stretch as any.

"Jars is Jars. It doesn't matter what's been going on this year," Rust said, using the goalie's nickname. "He's been coming to the rink. He's been working hard. Obviously, it's not been a great year mentally for him. He's come back and he's shown a lot of resilience. That's huge. Our team notices that. Our room notices that.

"When he's at his game, that just kind of helps rally our team."

Saturday was the latest exhibition of Jarry's capabilities. Toronto's two goals came off a rebound, as well as a one-timer from William Nylander that Jarry would have had no business stopping.

Even with the two goals against on Saturday night, Jarry's figures remain stellar since the Vancouver Canucks tagged him for four on Thanksgiving Eve. Over his last three starts, Jarry has a 2.33 GAA while compiling a robust .929 save percentage.

As for what's worked well for Jarry over his past handful of appearances, coach Mike Sullivan gave kudos to his netminder for doing a better job of tracking pucks. But, perhaps more importantly, Jarry has picked up from what by all intents and purposes had all the makings of a solid start to the year.

"He had a great training camp. He was in great shape," Sullivan said. "But ... his first couple starts were rough. But he's grabbed ahold of it. And give him a lot of credit. He's worked hard. He went to Wilkes. He got some games there. He played extremely well. And he's building his game."

Due to his arduous beginning of the year, Jarry's advanced goalie stats across the board for the season remain below league average. Jarry will need to continue this string of success if he has any hopes of slowly clawing his way back toward competency when it comes to seasonlong stats like save percentage on mid-range, long-range and high-danger chances.

At least in the interim, though, Jarry is playing at a level that has the support of his teammates.

"He's been great for us," forward Rickard Rakell said. "He's making huge saves, giving us a chance to stay in games even when teams are pushing us back. Gives us a lot of confidence, working hard and just playing good in front of him."

The latter point is a salient one, considering the Penguins on the whole have done a better job in recent weeks of shutting down grade-A, off-the-rush scoring chances. Still, there are inevitably times in any game when a netminder will need to bail the team out — or at the very least rise to the occasion.

In the case of Saturday night against a high-octane Maple Leafs team that's among the Eastern Conference's finest, Jarry did his job. It's something that, amid all the turmoil of the last two seasons, Sullivan has believed Jarry to be capable of.

Now, Jarry's potential has turned to reality, and the Penguins are finally reaping the benefits.

"With every game that he's played here, we think he's getting better and better," Sullivan said. "When he's playing at the top of his game, he's a very good goalie and he's going to make timely saves for us. We know he is."

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