NHL Rumors: Edmonton Oilers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Tristan Jarry

The Penguins won’t retain on Tristan Jarry, which basically takes the Oilers out of it

Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas on 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – Are Canucks Trading Quinn Hughes? episode on the Edmonton Oilers and Pittsburgh Penguins talking about a Tristan Jarry trade. The Penguins won’t retain any salary on Jarry, who has two years left, which makes the real hard for the Oilers to do.

** NHLRumors.com transcription

Bukauskas: “Another name that had been out there you were looking around online the last few days, Tristan Jarry. Being linked to the Edmonton Oilers. I mean, there was that shot of the hug between Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard that seemed to linger a little bit after that win against Seattle on Thursday. And everyone’s trying to decode, okay, ‘What, what does that mean? What does that mean?’

NHL Rumors: Could the Montreal Canadiens Take a Run at Phillip Danault?

That was another part of Headlines on Saturday for you, Elliotte. Jarry and the Oilers, what’s going on, if anything?”

Friedman: “So there was a, there was a post on Friday night that indicated a deal was done with 50% retention. And you know, the one thing that is absolutely true is that Edmonton showed a lot of interest in Jarry. Like, that’s real. I can’t remember who was the first to report it, but it’s true.

And what I kind of had to work through was what was fact and what was fiction. And I’ll tell you that what was fact is that the Oilers liked the idea. And what is also fact, and it really explained a lot of this Pickard stuff to me, Kyle, that you and I have talked about, and that he admitted to you, that he kind of knew. I think he knew that if they had gotten Jarry, he was out.

That, because I’ve since found out it wasn’t going to be Jarry for Skinner, it was going to be Jarry and Skinner. Which, you know, one of the things we’ve talked about a lot is that the Oilers weren’t going to make a change in goal unless they really believe they could have improvement. And I think you would make an argument that a Skinner-Jarry combination, assuming both could stay healthy, it was an improvement. And they were hoping that that’s what they could do, and the two of them would push each other and force each other to become better. That was their goal.

Now, what happened that has ended things for now, is that I’m told Pittsburgh is absolutely unwilling to retain. Jarry has two more years at just under $5.4 million, and they, the Penguins have made it very clear that if they were going to do this, there was going to be no retention.

And if you’re an Oiler fan, you know that that’s going to be very hard for them to do. The Oilers are capped tight, and right now they’ve got a lot of injuries, and guys just in and out, and they’re barely carrying extra players. Like their roster is stuck. So they really couldn’t do a lot of stuff even if they wanted to without dollar in, dollar out. Kind of like we discussed with New Jersey.

NHL Rumors: Will the Edmonton Oilers Make a Goalie Move This Season?

So that, I’m told that that has made that trade almost impossible to do unless the Oilers do surgery of their own. And I’m not convinced they want to do that. So basically, where we are is, yes, they do like Jarry. Yes, they would love to have a Jarry-Skinner combination, or like to have it. But no, they can’t do it in their present situation unless bodies go out.

So basically, what I was told was, could it happen? Possibly. Would they like it to happen? Yeah, I think they would be interested. Can it happen? Very, very hard and may not happen.”

Have you subscribed to our YouTube channel? Rumor roundups and hot topics from around the league. We’re also posting some stuff on Instagram.