In the NHL’s temporarily reconfigured and corporate-sponsored East Division, there are a handful of teams still deploying a hard, physical, bruising element to their games.
The New York Islanders are one of those squads.
The Pittsburgh Penguins are not.
As designed by former general manager Jim Rutherford and maintained thus far by his successor, Ron Hextall, the Penguins still primarily are geared to using speed and skill to defeat the opposition.
“What’s important is that we understand the type of game that we have to play,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “We’ve got to play to our identity. That’s the conversation that we have with our players, regardless of who our opponent is. It makes no sense for us to get caught up playing somebody else’s game. We’ve got to play our game and dictate the terms out there.”
Of course, you can harbor any identity you dang well please when your goaltender plays the way Tristan Jarry has as of late.
On Thursday, Jarry made 31 saves on 32 shots and led the Penguins to a 4-1 win against the Islanders at PPG Paints Arena.
He came within five minutes of recording his first shutout of the season and continued a string of strong play over the past week.
In his past three games, Jarry has stopped 98 of 105 shots, equating to a save percentage of .933.
In contrast, in his first seven games of the season, he could only deny 150 of the 175 shots he faced, leading to an ugly save percentage of .857.
For Jarry, the key to that improvement has been simple.
“Just working on it in practice and making sure my habits are good, I think that’s where it comes from,” Jarry said via video conference. “It’s working hard in practice and working hard with (goaltending coach Mike Buckley) and the coaching staff. That helped tidy up my practice habits, and it translated into my game.”
Another thing that translated well for the Penguins this game: line changes. Specifically, the right wing slots on the top two lines. Kasperi Kapanen was moved to the top line while Bryan Rust bumped to the second line.
Those alterations led to three of the Penguins’ goals.
The Penguins claimed the game’s first goal 4 minutes, 15 seconds into regulation after Kapanen stole a puck in New York’s left circle and quickly chipped a wrister at the cage while falling. Penguins forward Sidney Crosby was skating above the crease and had the puck deflect off his stick, past the blocker of goaltender Semyon Varlamov on the near side for his sixth goal of the season.
It became a 2-0 game late in the second period at the 18:01 mark. A wrister from the Islanders’ left circle by Penguins defenseman Mike Matheson was denied by Varlamov, but a rebound deflected to the right of the crease, where Penguins forward Teddy Blueger cleaned up the garbage for his third goal.
An insurance goal was added at 9:11 of the third period. From behind the Islanders’ net, Rust fed a pass to the front of the crease for Penguins forward Jason Zucker, who fired a wrister for his fourth goal.
A tap-in power-play goal by Islanders forward Brock Nelson — his fourth of the season — at 15:39 of the third broke up the shutout bid.
Rust scored his sixth goal on an empty net to cap the scoring at 16:54.
“This is a good building block game for us,” Zucker said. “We’ve just got to keep getting better from here on out.”
Jarry appears to be doing that already.
“He’s really making strides,” Sullivan said. “He looks much more comfortable in the crease. He’s challenging the shooter. He’s tracking the puck through traffic. His rebound control has been improved.
“When your goaltender is making saves for your team, it has a psychological impact in a positive way in the group in front of him. Tristan’s doing that for us right now.”
Seth Rorabaugh is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Seth by email at [email protected] or via Twitter .
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