The NHL’s two Pennsylvania teams announced new goalie contracts on Saturday morning with the Penguins re-signing Tristan Jarry to a three-year contract, while the Philadelphia Flyers brought back Brian Elliott on a one-year deal.
Let’s take a quick look at both.
Penguins re-sign Jarry
The goalie position is high on Jim Rutherford’s to-do list this offseason given that both Jarry and Matt Murray were restricted free agents.
It has been assumed that one of them will be traded, with Murray being the most likely option to move on.
The re-signing of Jarry on Saturday does little to sway that opinion.
Jarry’s deal is a three-year deal that will pay him $3.5 million per season. The 2019-20 season was a breakout year for Jarry as he started 33 games, posting a 20-12-1 record with a .921 save percentage. His performance in the first half of the season earned him an invite to the NHL All-Star Game.
There is still some question as to how good he is at this point. For as good as his first half was, he did cool off a little in the second half of the season and his overall body of work at the NHL level is still quite small. He has only appeared in 62 regular season games over parts of four seasons. He has a .914 save percentage in those games.
Now we wait to see what the team does with Murray.
Flyers bring back Elliott
Meanwhile, on the eastern side of the state, the Flyers announced that they have re-signed Elliott to a one-year, $1.5 million contract to remain with the team for one more season.
The 35-year-old Elliott has already played three seasons with the Flyers and will continue on as Carter Hart’s backup.
In 31 games this past season Elliott recorded a 16-7-4 record with a .899 save percentage.
Throughout his career Elliott has been a fairly consistent league average goalie with the occasional year where his performance spikes. The 2019-20 season was an exception to that as he finished with some of his worst numbers in years. An outlier? Or the sign of a goalie starting to slow down? There is not much risk with this deal if it does not work out, and the Flyers seem to like the intangibles that he brings to the position.
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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.