Who better to go inside the mind of a goaltender than former Penguins goalie Frank Pietrangelo? Frank is still a diehard Penguins fan and joined The Fan Morning Show Tuesday to discuss Tristan Jarry's performance in Game 1.
"That's gone, that's got to be out of your mind completely at this point. He's got to just focus on what he's got to do here. He's had a great second half to the season, let's be honest. I think he lost one game in regulation out of his last 14, 15 games so Jarry has been very good for the Pens," said Pietrangelo. "He wasn't good in Game 1 but I have full confidence he'll bounce back tonight."
Pietrangelo didn't sugar coat the fact that those goals Jarry let in were soft.
"The three regulation goals, none of them were good. He made some big saves in the game, he was good as far as that goes. But it's not the ones that you save, it's the ones you let in and all three of those goals were preventable. The overtime goal, that was more of a fluke. He kind of just swatting at it and there was that little space and it happens to go in. It's probably 1 out of 100 that's ever going to hit that spot again. But the other three, they were just simple shots that he should have had."
He says that he wouldn't change anything about his game or preparation for the game if he were Jarry, just that he needs to keep things simple for himself. He thought the Penguins were the better team for most of the game and deserved to win.
What he doesn't think the issue is any kind of anxiousness or jitters in being in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
"I guess you can say anything like that can happen but this guy is a professional. He's been a winner everywhere he's been, whether it's been in the CHL out west winning championships, whether it was with Wilkes-Barre. Wherever he's been, he knows what it takes to make it happen.
I don't think that's in his mind, I don't think that's in anybody's mind. I don't think there's any lack of confidence. He just had a game where he got beat by a couple of shots that he should have had. Things are so fine at this time of year that one mistake could cost the game, and I think that's what happened the other night."
Frank also didn't appreciate the way Islanders goaltender Ilya Sorokin tripped Jake Guentzel with his stick. He said it should have been a penalty, called it "ridiculous" and said there is no need for that. Guentzel was below the goal line when he tripped him and Pietrangelo likened it to tripping a man just because he was going to beat you on a wraparound attempt.
