Tristan Jarry gets 1st win as Penguins beat Rangers in shootout

Friday offered a pretty big moment in the young life of 21-year-old P.O Joseph.

The Penguins defensive prospect made his NHL debut.

“Today and yesterday, I felt like my nervous level was pretty high,” Joseph said via video conference. “But once the game started, it’s hockey. I’ve been playing this sport forever. I just told myself to enjoy the first one because it only comes once.”

Something else happened for the first time.

Goaltender Tristan Jarry got a win this season.

Making 31 saves on 34 shots in regulation and overtime, Jarry also stopped two of the three shots he saw in a shootout and steered his team to a 4-3 comeback win against the New York Rangers.

Jarry rebounded after a rough start to the season in which he allowed nine goals on 34 shots in only two games, each losses in Philadelphia last week.

That prompted coaches to turn to backup goaltender Casey DeSmith for two consecutive contests while Jarry refined his game with goaltending coach Mike Buckley during practice throughout the week.

“It was just getting back to basics for me,” Jarry said. “I wanted to get better every day in practice and then just work on the things to improve my game to make sure I was staying sharp and be better tonight than I was in the previous two games.”

“I thought he had a great game tonight,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “He made a lot of timely saves for us. He was big in the shootout. It was an opportunity for him to just get a couple of good practices under his belt and just focus on stopping the puck. The fundamentals and kind of going back to basics. That’s what we were trying to accomplish this week, and I thought he responded really well. He had a good game tonight.”

After Penguins forward Bryan Rust opened the scoring with his first goal 10:29 into regulation, the Rangers responded with three consecutive goals in the second period over a span 3:01.

Rangers forward Filip Chytil converted a defensive zone turnover by Penguins defenseman Brian Dumoulin into his second goal at the 2:41 mark.

That was followed up by a power-play score from defenseman Adam Fox, his first, at 5:18.

After forward Kaapo Kakko collected his second goal at 5:42 on a rebound, Sullivan called a timeout to get his group organized.

“I was certainly trying to elicit a certain response,” Sullivan said. “I wanted us to have a little pushback.”

The Penguins pushed back starting with their own power-play goal, albeit with some help from the Rangers, at 16:56 of the second. Taking a pass low on the left wing, Penguins forward Jared McCann tried to force a pass through the crease but had it blocked by Rangers defenseman Ryan Lindgren, who then inadvertently pushed it into the net with his left glove, giving McCann his first goal of the season.

Joseph then got involved in the scoring at 11:23 of the third period. Taking a pass at the left point, Joseph blasted a one-timer that hit off the end boards and deflected to the right of the cage, where Teddy Blueger cleaned up the rebound for his second goal of the season and Joseph’s first career point, an assist.

In the shootout, successful attempts by forward Jake Guentzel and defenseman Kris Letang secured victory.

After stopping Rangers forward Mike Zibanejad, Jarry allowed forward Artemi Panarin to score then denied defenseman Tony DeAngelo.

That prompted a slight fist pump by Jarry as his teammates surged off the bench to celebrate his first win of 2020-21.

“Tristan works hard every single day,” McCann said. “He just plays his game. He’s a guy that we can really stand in front of and know he’s going to make that save for us.”