Wilkes Weekly: Tristan Jarry off to good start in AHL

Checking in on the minor league team with a major league goaltender

There are more eyes than usual on Wilkes-Barre these days with Tristan Jarry in town for a conditioning assignment in the AHL.

The erstwhile Penguin goalie was sent away from the NHL team mid-road trip and popped up in Wilkes on Saturday to play his first AHL game since April of 2019. Jarry’s first step in rebuilding himself went well, stopping 32 shots and being named first star in WB/S’s 3-2 win over Syracuse.

The Pens had lost 2-0 to the same Syracuse team on Friday for their only other game of the week.

Jarry looks to be in good spirits as he attempts to make the best of the awkward situation of publicly having to play himself back into the good graces of the team.

It was all systems go for Wilkes in the win with a lot of encouraging names showing up on the score sheet. Sam Poulin, Tristan Broz and Avery Hayes scored goals on Saturday. Emil Bemstrom and Mac Hollowel added two assists a piece.

As far as the lineup goes, Rutger McGroarty has moved his way up to the top line upon his acclimation process to the AHL. Ville Koivunen and Tristan Broz remain in important roles in their rookie seasons.

The injury bug has begin to bite at the AHL level, center Jimmy Huntington is week-to-week with a lower body injury. Defensemen Filip Kral (week-to-week, upper body) and Dan Renouf are also on the shelf. The main result of these injuries has been to switch Boris Katchouk over to the center spot and to open up a spot in the lineup for 24-year old Justin Lee (on an AHL contract this season).

Interestingly enough, Sam Poulin is now playing on the right wing and has now been worked at all three different forward positions across his AHL career. Even when Huntington went down, it wasn’t Poulin who moved back to center which may or may not mean anything for larger implications but it does say something for him to remain on the wing these days. Poulin and Bemstrom currently led WBS with seven points a piece in the six games.

The 1-1 week did nothing to alter Wilkes’ spot in the standings, they remain in third place in their division in the season’s early days.

It’ll be another light week of action ahead for WB/S, they play in Bridgeport tonight and return home on Saturday to face off against the Hartford Wolf Pack for the only games on the upcoming schedule.

Jarry can remain in the AHL up through November 9th on his AHL loan and should be seeing playing time in one, if not both of the games ahead as the organization looks to get him back on track.

Other than that, the prospect focus will remain on players like Broz, Koivunen, Bemstrom and Poulin who are playing well at the moment. Pittsburgh only has 12 healthy forwards at the moment (though Matt Nieto and Blake Lizzote have been gearing up for returns) which means that any additional forward injury might lead to a temporary need for an emergency recall of a forward from Wilkes.

WB/S should be getting another reinforcement coming sooner than later in the form of Vasily Ponomarev. Injured in training camp, Ponomarev is back to skating in Pittsburgh and can be re-assigned to the AHL once he is healthy.

Those names are minor footnotes to the immediate big story-line in Wilkes, with a lot of eyes watching from afar to see what happens next in Jarry’s journey.