During his 105.9 The X radio show Wednesday night, Penguins general manager Ron Hextall provided an update on injured goaltender Tristan Jarry.
He also got very specific about the goals for the team as the trade deadline nears.
On the goalie front, Hextall praised the work of both Jarry and Casey DeSmith over the last month, as they combined to backstop the team to a 12-3-1 record during the month of March. And, as of now, it doesn’t sound like the upper-body injury Jarry suffered during Monday’s win over the New York Islanders is going to keep him out of action for an extended stretch.
“We don’t think it is going to be a long-term injury. So thus far we have gotten good news,” Hextall told Penguins play-by-play man Josh Getzoff.
When the topic of conversation turned to potential trades, the notion of needing a goalie to replace Jarry in the rotation with DeSmith did not come up. So that’s another positive sign.
However, Hextall was specific about what kind of talent he’d like to acquire.
“We’d like to add a forward if we could,” Hextall said. “The price has got to be right. We have cap issues. We don’t want to give up a ton of futures. We would try to do that. A big physical forward would be nice to have if we could find the right guy.”
For now, it appears Hextall is weighing the option of acquiring someone for the long term and whether that player would be worth it to the franchise if some of the forward reserves are doing a good enough job of keeping the Pens afloat during this recent rash of injuries.
“I like the depth of our group,” Hextall continued. “You look at your team when they are healthy and then you look at where they are right now. And figure out, ‘Do we have to add something here to get us through the next month or so until we get some injured guys back?’”
Hextall specifically praised Mark Jankowski, Zach Aston-Reese, Colton Sceviour, Evan Rodrigues and Freddy Gaudreau for elevating their games while the likes of Evgeni Malkin, Jason Zucker, Teddy Blueger and Kasperi Kapanen have all missed significant chunks of time with various ailments.
Hextall admits that push and pull is giving him pause before he wades into trade discussions.
“Our group is a lot deeper in my mind than where it was a month ago,” Hextall explained. “So that might prevent us from having to add a player. But if we think that we can make our team better, give us a better chance of making a long run, we’ll certainly do it. But I really like what we’ve seen from some of these players that have moved up and taken more responsibility in this beat-up time for us.”
The NHL’s trade deadline is April 12.
Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at [email protected] or via Twitter. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.
