Tristan Jarry clears waivers, what’s next for him?

What happens to Jarry now that he’s cleared waivers?

Tristan Jarry cleared waivers today. That comes as no surprise, per PuckPedia only 11 teams have the available $5.375 million in cap space currently to fit the goalie into their salary structures. Given that Jarry’s contract continues for three more seasons after this one, it’s easily understandable that no other NHL club was interested in picking that contract up considering it comes paired with a struggling goaltender.

The natural questions that comes in focus are, what does is mean and what is next?

Penguin GM Kyle Dubas provided much of the answers in comments yesterday. Jarry has already been assigned by Pittsburgh to their minor league affiliate in Wilkes-Barre. Prospect Joel Blomqvist, who played eight NHL games earlier in the season, was recalled up to Pittsburgh.

The sense of “long run for the team” and reporter Josh Yohe using phrases like “reached a breaking point” give the sense this won’t be a brief or temporary stint in the AHL for Jarry. The Penguins can’t and don’t trust his ability to play in the NHL, and while the future is uncertain, a path for a return isn’t on the horizon anytime soon.

So, what’s next?

A lot of bus rides in the “Always Hungry League” for Jarry, who still will make the full salary on his contract. The Penguins will receive minimal salary cap benefit of $1.15 million (prorated). That math adds up to Pittsburgh carrying a $4.225 million buried cap hit on their books for as long as Jarry stays in the minors, instead of the $5.375m cap hit when he was on the active NHL roster.

In essence, Jarry has become the next in line with Jack Campbell and Cal Petersen — two goalies who were waived with multiple years left of $5+ million annual salaries and two goalies who have mired in a sort of career purgatory ever since. As such, studying these cases lend a good outlook into what could be in Jarry’s future.

Campbell, like Jarry, was early into the second year of a five-year contract when he was waived by Edmonton in November 2023. Campbell played out the 2023-24 season with Edmonton’s AHL affiliate in Bakersfield and then was bought out by the Oilers in the summer of 2024. Due to the structure of his contract, the Oilers’ dead cap hits are: $1.1 million this season, $2.3m and $2.6m in the next two years to come and then $1.5 million for each of the next three seasons. Campbell signed as a free agent with the Detroit organization and has again been in the AHL this season.

While Campbell’s situation came to a head quickly due to a somewhat favorable buyout structure, Petersen’s path might be more in-line with what Jarry could have in his future. Petersen was signed early to a three-year extension by Los Angeles, and shortly after the time the contract kicked in, the Kings wanted out. They waived the goalie and stashed him with their AHL team for the rest of the 2022-23 season. The following off-season, Petersen was included in a trade to Philadelphia that served to shed salary for Los Angeles. With bonus and backloaded money written into his contract, the math wasn’t favorable for the Flyers to buy him out, so Petersen has languished in the AHL since December of 2022, aside from getting called up to play in five games in the NHL last season by Philadelphia.

Jarry’s contract is structured more like Petersen’s than Campbell’s, and as the outlook from Puck Pedia shows, a buyout isn’t sensible for the Penguins. For one, Dubas is on the record openly disliking buyouts, and as a second point, the Pens would be better off having Jarry buried in the minors and collecting the $1.15 million bit of relief that provides, without having extra years of dead space tacked on.

The other commonalty of Petersen and Campbell is that they did not stick around very long with the NHL club that jettisoned them to the minors. Both goalies were moved (via trade and buyout, respectively) in the following off-season. That could also bear watching for Jarry, should the Penguins retain salary on his contract or be willing to take a player back from a team that might be over-paid or under-performing a transaction could be struck to move Jarry onto a new situation.

At this point, the least likely scenario of all seems to be Jarry doing what he did as recently as November to play his way back into the team’s confidence and eventually regain something of a permanent hold on a job in Pittsburgh. That ship might have already set sail, at least as far as it looks now. However, the Jarry saga with the Pens has already had so many unexpected twists and turns, who can say what might happen next in the three-and-a-half seasons that are still to go on his contract.

The only thing for certain is that Jarry will be headed to the AHL for a second time this season. When he might get the chance to play another NHL game is anyone’s guess, but it might be a long, long time out.