Tristan Jarry is the Penguins' top goaltender, but will he be the starter?

With the Pittsburgh Penguins scheduled to open training camp Wednesday, here is a position-by-position look at their roster. Today, a glance at their goaltenders.

Just prior to the start of the NHL Draft at the Sphere in Paradise, Nevada, Penguins president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas had a peculiar way of explaining goaltending depth.

“I’d rather have the goalies in the barn than be chasing them (in free agency),” Dubas said in June. “It’s not a fun place to be.”

Whatever place Dubas houses his goaltenders, there isn’t much room left.

Entering the 2024-25 season, the Penguins are well stocked at the position from the NHL roster through to each minor league affiliate with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and Wheeling Nailers.

That’s not to say there aren’t questions about the position. There definitely are. And it begins at the top.

Tristan Jarry is the Penguins’ top goaltender, but it’s fair to wonder if he’ll even be the starter for the bulk of the upcoming season.

Especially considering he didn’t start the final 13 games of the 2023-24 campaign as his team desperately made a valiant but futile push for a playoff position.

Jarry has plenty of talent to be a legitimate top goaltender. He did lead the NHL with six shutouts last season, after all. However, consistency has always been a valid concern for him, even going back to his days in the American Hockey League.

In the days following the conclusion of their 2023-24 season, coach Mike Sullivan and Dubas did everything they could to convince the world that Jarry is their guy going into 2024-25, but Jarry’s actions will do much more to validate his standing with the club than any kind of endorsement.

Alex Nedeljkovic, the person who spearheaded that late-season surge for the Penguins, was re-signed to a two-year contract extension in June and will once again push Jarry for playing time. And should Jarry falter, Sullivan and company won’t hesitate to turn to Nedeljkovic to button things up in net.

Finnish-born Joel Blomqvist, one of the team’s top prospects, enjoyed a strong first season in North America in 2023-24 with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and was selected as an AHL All-Star.

There was some suggestion by Dubas that Blomqvist could graduate to the NHL for the upcoming season, but the return of Nedeljkovic will allow Blomqvist to enjoy further refinement in Northeast Pennsylvania.

Management fortified its depth in the pipeline in April when Filip Larsson was signed to a two-year, two-way contract. A former Detroit Red Wings prospect, Larsson enjoyed a productive season with Leksands IF in his native Sweden before opting to return to North America. The 26-year-old has plenty of experience, though not much of it has happened on this continent.

Another offseason signing was Russian prospect Sergei Murashov, a fourth-round pick (No. 118) in the 2022 NHL Draft. After posting a 24-4-2 record with Loko Yaroslavl in Russia’s Minor Hockey League, Murashov had a strong showing in the Penguins’ development camp in July, prompting management to sign him to a three-year entry-level contract.

The 20-year-old will presumably open the season in the ECHL with Wheeling and he’ll have to compete with Taylor Gauthier.

Selected as an All-Star and named winner of the ECHL’s best goaltender award last season, the 23-year-old Gauthier has done nothing but steadily improve since signing a three-year entry-level contract in 2022.