Petry played with 30 D in MTL give or take
He had success with Benn , Kulak and Eddy only , no exceptions .

Want a cheap fix?
EDM is paying to dump Kulak
Added bonus is they can both run 2nd PP and 2nd PK from 3rd pair without screwing POJ or in this case i guess Clifton ?
What you dont got is a D who can cover for Petry handling the 2v1 and 3v1 that will eventually come when he gets stripped of a puck on the rush.


Of all the possible options i can think of for Petry , this is by far the cheapest and PIT can afford it

I feel like Petry would be Yzerman's 6th or 7th option for filling the RD hole left by Hronek. I have no idea what the plan for Zadina is. He scores once a month.

Detroit does not want Petry.

So the solution for Jarry having one injury-riddled season is to replace him with an older, worse, and more injury-prone goalie?
And I'm not playing any of Clifton, Kulikov, or Mikkola over Smith. You stress getting younger, but then he's the 7th D? Besides, if we're opening a slot on RD, I think Damon Severson or Scott Mayfield would be the best options on the UFA market and we have the cap space to make a reasonable offer.

Raanta isn't my top choice to replace Jarry, but we have to replace Jarry. He wants term and it would not be smart for us to give it to him. He has either been injured or played very poorly at the most important points in the season and playoffs. Giving him anything more than a year or two would be way too much of a risk and surely another team will pay him what he wants.

Well said. I like pretty much everything you did. I will say though, Granlund can be bought out and only cost 800k against the cap. I'd take 800k dead cap plus 4 mil to spend on another forward (Domi, Barbashev, Compher someone like that) as opposed to Granlund at 5 mil. We would have roughly 8 mil more then to fill out the roster, which I think in addition to your signings would make for a really good team.

Detroit doesn't want Petry, if we wanted him he'd be in Detroit when Montreal traded him.

Not sure if we can make it any clearer, if Tyler Bertuzzi was willing to sign for 4 x $5,500,000 he'd still be in Detroit not traded to Boston. Reports out of Detroit are Bertuzzi wants anywhere from 6-7 years @ $6,500,000 to $7,000,000 per he's not signing for 4 x $5,500,000 pretty much guarantees you that.

Any option in net is a risk. IMO, Jarry is the least risky, even for long term.
Before his injury right before the playoffs last season, Jars only had 2 injuries in his career, and neither were more than a week. His numbers this year were dragged down by a horrible stretch after returning from injury and he's spent the majority of his career as an above average starter at best. We know what he's usually capable of, and it's not what he looks like now.

There aren't better options available for trade. Demko and Jarry are basically in the same position, except bringing in Demko will cost a 1st+ at least. John Gibson has been below average for 4 seasons in a row now, even by models that adjust for the fact that Anaheim has sucked during that span. I seriously doubt we have the assets required to get Saros or Vejmelka. I love Fleury, but is he really going to be able to be the starter of a playoff team at 39?

The same argument for Saros/Veggie applies to the RFA goalies: Gustavsson, Swayman, and Samsonov. Do we have the assets to aquire their rights? And if we let Jarry go and whatever team matches our offer, we're screwed.

UFAs fall into 3 categories: 1. Too old to realistically be the starter (Varlamov, Quick, Raanta, Talbot, Anderson, Stalock); 2. Probably not a significant upgrade to DeSmith (Hill, Korpisalo, Brossoit, Ingram), and 3. Definitely not an upgrade to DeSmith (Jones, Rittich, Nedeljkovic). There is some overlap here, but the point stands that there really isn't a bona fide starter on the UFA market other than Jarry.
And I'm gonna focus in on Korpisalo for a second, because he's gotten a lot of traction from his play this year. Him being NHL caliber, let alone as good as he's been, is the exception and not the norm. Korpi has a sub .900 SV% in half the seasons he's played in the NHL. DeSmith's down year has the same SV% as Korpisalo's average. I don't trust him as a starter.

I get the hesitation with Jarry. But I just don't think there's a better option.

I see what you are saying but I would still go with a 1a 1b. I get that other options are risky as well, but many of them will come at a much lower cost and term. I don't think Jarry's play (hasn't been great this year) is enough to give him a large contract with term versus getting two solid goalies, whose ceilings maybe won't be as high as Jarry's, but their floor will be higher. I don't know if I'm making sense but what I'm trying to say is the difference in skill between Jarry and lets say Varlamov is not worth the difference there would be in pay and term. And that isn't even factoring the risk. I get that Varlamov is old, but I think he'd do fine in a 1a 1b tandem. Get two goalies and have both of them play like 40 games each. See whose better come playoff time. Korpisolo hasn't been great always, but as his best he's been really really good. I think a tandem of Varlamov Korpisolo, who would both probably cost around 3 mil and get a couple years on a contract, would be better than Jarry at 5 x 5 for example. Desmith has been great when he has limited starts, but when he plays often that is when he struggles. Korpisolo Varlamov would both be completely fine playing half the games. For a goaltending position that has been very volatile the past few years, I feel a 1a 1b tandem is the safest option getting two goalies that can split the load.

I get where you're coming from, but I don't agree.
I don't trust Korpisalo to have a season like this one again, especially if our defense doesn't get better (and I don't think Clifton, Mikkola, or Kulikov make it any better than it is now.) He's a 1B at best, and he's very rarely at his best. His claim to fame is the one playoff run from almost 4 years ago. The argument about what players' floors are doesn't make sense to me in this case because I think both Jarry and DeSmith have higher floors, and neither are at their floors as often as Korpi is.
Varlamov is probably one of the better options we have, but I still can't see him as the starter of a playoff team anymore. He turns 35 at the end of the month, so he doesn't help the "Penguins are really old" problem. And he's been the backup for 2 seasons in NYI, and because of the COVID season hasn't played 40+ games in 3. So I'm not particularly confident in his ability to handle a heavy workload either.
To me, Varlamov would probably be a 1B, and Korpisalo would be lucky to be a 1B. I'm not optimistic about that tandem, and it might be the best we can do if Jarry walks and we're done with DeSmith.

I'm still confident in Jarry. I don't think he was 100% healthy after returning in February, and as I mentioned, he never had injury issues until around a year ago. I don't think they'll last, either. Before February, Jars had a .921 SV% and a 9.21 GSAx, according to evolving-hockey. In goalies who faced at least 500 shot attempts during that span, those numbers are 5th best and 15th best out of 62 goalies. If he still plays poorly in the rest of the regular season (and the playoffs if we make it), then maybe I'd consider parting ways. But it's clear to me that he'll be much better after an offseason of recovery regardless. He's at his ceiling far more often than his floor, and his ceiling gets him Vezina consideration.
As for DeSmith, over that same span (Up through the end of January) he and Korpisalo were pretty similar in stats. DeSmith had a .901 SV% and a 2.32 GSAx to Korpi's .906 SV% and 2.82 GSAx, in about the same number of games. For the better part of the year, DeSmith's worst season ever was barely worse than Korpi's best since he was a rookie. If you want to offer $3M to Korpisalo, be my guest. But DeSmith is at worst a slight downgrade to free up a $1.2M more cap space for someone who'll have a bigger impact like Bertuzzi or Severson.

See my thing is though, even if Jarry is the best option, I don't think he's earned a 5 x 5 or a 6 x 6 (what he reportedly wants). I get maybe the injuries messed up his season, but at that point a 1 year prove it deal is more fair at like 3-4 mil. If his poor play was due to injuries then what makes sense is give him a year to prove himself before dishing out a huge deal. I feel giving him a huge deal out of desperation just because there aren't better options wouldn't be wise. Varlamov I agree is a downgrade over Jarry when he's at his best, but the issue is he hasn't been at his best majority of this year. It's unknown what his injury even is or whether they're all related so it's hard to say. If all 3-4 of his injuries this year are related, which I suspect, that could be concerning because who knows if it will linger or if he might need surgery. If they're all unrelated, then 3-4 in a year means very injury prone. Reality is though, it's tough for anyone to say as none of us know for sure.

One thing that I do agree on is that our defense is abysmal. We need better defense to contend regardless of who is in goal. I don't know if Vasilevsky could carry us with how bad our defense is. I would invest a ton of money into defense this offseason. I think a top defense in front of Varlamov plus a 1b could win a ton of games. Check out my latest ACGM if you want and lmk what you think, tried to upgrade the defense a ton in front of Varlamov/Korpisolo.

https://www.capfriendly.com/armchair-gm/team/4085904

I also question our system too. Sullivan constantly has the D activate. I don't know why we have Chad Ruhwedle and Taylor Fedun activating with 2 min left. Letang sure, but why are we having all these defensive defensemen who are slower try and play that style. I think we might need to make both personal changes and systematic changes to the D if we want to contend.

I think part of the issue with the system is just that it's an older team that can't play the way Sully is best at coaching. It's definitely not his best year as a coach, but the team itself needs an influx of youth regardless of the system. Hopefully some more development from POJ and getting Smith into the lineup proves a good start, that would make the GM's job easier. If I were to get a new vet or 2 in the D core, Severson is the clear prize in the offseason, and I like Radko Gudas's physicality in front of his own net, which I feel like we've usually lacked this year.

But saying Jarry hasn't been his best for "majority of this year" is incorrect. As I mentioned, he had a .921 SV% up until the injury late January. That was through 27 of his 41 games this year. Bit petty to bring that up, but that was a long stretch of being an above average starter at worst. And that's what he's been for most of his career. The worst SV% he's had on a year he's played more than a couple games is .908, and that was his first year seeing major ice time. That's him at his worst. He's gotten 2 seasons now where he's had Vezina votes, is a 2 time All Star, and in 2019-20, had a Hart vote.
He's "unproven" because of a streak of injuries. Fairly certain Sullivan said the injuries weren't related, but I don't know if I am willing to say "injury prone" since this is a pretty new thing in an otherwise very healthy and successful career. Hockey's a tough sport, and stuff like this happens from time to time.
As far as I'm concerned, the worries about Jarry are an overreaction. The worst reasonable outcome to signing him long-term is another contract like Tanger, Raks, and Rust that'll be fine for the short term, and by the time it's actually an issue, the team will suck enough that we'll probably be rebuilding anyway.

You would need to give more than a 2nd to get rid of petry without adding zadina. Get real.

Oh the DET fans are not going to be happy with you haha.

I would think the Pens probably have to pay to get rid of Rutta unfortunately. If Clifton or Mikkola are better than Rutta - why wouldn't SEA just pay them instead of giving up a 3rd for Rutta ya know?