I know who I do *not* trust, and it's because of two-plus years of watching the guy play, not some stats on a website called Moneypuck or some person who runs a blog with player cards and/or heatmaps.
Maybe that's archaic thinking, maybe it's too simplistic, maybe it's caveman-brain, but I've seen Jarry lose enough games for this already mediocre team with backbreaking goals against, at the worst possible times, due to poor fundamentals/composure, and I've seen Jarry play through injuries bad enough to hobble an otherwise capable, if not very talented goalie (else he's on the shelf entirely with said injuries that are so bad he can't even play through them) to know for sure another direction is needed. Are there sure-fire, foolproof options out there? Not ones this team can afford, cap-wise or in terms of price of acquisition via trade. Are there options out there that may end up being no different as far as the big picture goes? Absolutely. But they're different, and simply defaulting back to a guy who has given ample reasons to move on (with an out of jail free card being a UFA this summer) would be disappointing, to put it mildly. He is not Antti Niemi or Dan Cloutier in that he's absolutely abysmal in the net and good for 6 goals against a game. His issue is that he is wholly, entirely unreliable.
Jarry sucks as an option imo. I cannot be convinced otherwise, regardless of whatever the hell heatmaps, or bloggers with advanced analytical tracking say. Frankly, I find it extremely odd that anybody would be cool with running it back with Jarry/CDS (or a different backup). Yes, stats matter. Yes, stats are important. Yes, I recognize that when Jarry's on a hot streak he posts some impressive numbers. But to see the body of work Jarry's put forth over the past few years, *particularly* in crunch time, and say "Yeah, I mean, that's the best option we got" is madness to me.
Do I think Jarry as a goalie sucks? No, when he's healthy, he's adequate and has enough raw talent to go on genuinely impressive hot streaks. Shit, he made the All Star team a couple times (as if anybody gives a f***, especially the players themselves). He is extremely athletically gifted. Problem is, he has all the composure and attention to detail/fundamentals issues of MAF--without the durability or resume of MAF. Again, it's a reliability issue. I don't think for a second that Jarry's gonna come up with the huge save or lock things down to close out a game as the other team throws wave after wave of desperate pressure to tie things up late (or win).
If they bring him back, I won't be livid or anything because we're firmly in "whatever" territory with this team and they're just circling the runway until they're ready for Sid to retire. But Jarry coming back, at the term/cap hit he's likely to ask for (and receive, here or elsewhere) feels like a laughably bad mistake on the level of idiocy (or nearing that) of anything JR or Hextall did. /shrug
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