Madden Monday: Penguins should sub out goalie Tristan Jarry for shootouts

Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry has struggled in shootouts so far this year. In this week’s “Madden Monday” podcast, Mark Madden of 105.9 The X says the Penguins can’t tolerate that shortcoming.

“When you are a borderline playoff team, you can’t have a goalie that (stinks) in shootouts,” Madden said. “He has allowed five goals on seven shootout attempts this year. That is embarrassingly bad, and he looks worse than those numbers.”

Madden went so far as to say that the Penguins should pull Jarry when games get to a shootout and put in Casey DeSmith.

“They need to sub him out for shootouts. They need to put DeSmith in for shootouts,” Madden said. “Roll it back and watch some of the goals. They are just horrible goals.”

Madden says Jarry’s issues in the shootout are symptomatic of a bigger problem.

“I just think he stinks. Period. And I know his numbers aren’t terrible. But he makes every save except the one he needs to,” Madden said. “I don’t trust him. And I think if you injected the coaching staff and the players with truth serum, they don’t trust him either.”

To Madden’s point, Jarry’s .925 save percentage was 12th in the league as of Sunday night. His goals against average of 2.33 is 11th. So, not bad.

But his 4-2-2 record shows he is winning just as often as he is losing. And that won’t be good enough for the Penguins to make the playoffs.

“They made a mistake not going out and getting a better goaltender to challenge Jarry for playing time,” Madden said.

Meanwhile, the 4-3 Steelers play Monday night against 3-5 Chicago Bears at Heinz Field. Then the 0-8 Detroit Lions come to town next week.

There is no way that the Steelers could get upset by either of those teams in the same way the Jacksonville Jaguars upset the Buffalo Bills.

Right?

“I don’t see any way they can lose to Detroit,” Madden said. “The only thing that worries me a little bit about Chicago is that Justin Fields could go crazy and have a big game because he’s that kind of talent. He is not yet that kind of quarterback. But he is that kind of talent who could just pop off and win a game like this. I don’t think he will. But I think this by far the more worrisome of the two games.”

Also in this week’s podcast, Madden and I discuss a strange day in the AFC, the silly idea that the Pirates may try to resign Andrew McCutchen, and the Aaron Rodgers controversy.

Listen: Tim Benz and Mark Madden discuss Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry’s struggles