The Penguins Need to Acquire this Goalie

The Penguins have problems. Very big problems. One of the biggest of those problems that the Penguins had the opportunity to fix a multitude of times, is between the pipes. To say that Tristan Jarry has been less than satisfactory would be the understatement of the century.

The New GM, whoever that may be, has a lot of work cut out for them. Possibly another understatement there as well.

Tristan Jarry in my mind at this point has had numerous times to prove that he is a top ten goaltender in this league. Yet every chance he had to be “thee” goaltender he let the Penguins down in a massive way.

When the big save needed to be made, Jarry never made it. When the Penguins have a lead, Jarry never keeps it. Elite winning goalies make the big saves, that’s why they are who they are. I’m convinced that Tristian Jarry is in fact not that goaltender. He’s great when the pressure is off but that is not enough in the NHL. To top off all of that, he’s hurt too much and he will want too much money. I say, let him walk.

So who will fill the pipes? Casey DeSmith? Indeed not, I don’t believe DeSmith is a 1A. I don’t mean to slight DeSmith, he did great for what was asked of him. It’s just time for a clean slate in net. I would just move on from Casey DeSmith and get a vet who can fill in as a starter for injuries. 

So who then? I believe the answer lies in the deserts of Arizona in Karel Vejmelka.

He comes in at a height of 6’4, 224 lbs, and 26 years old.

His cap hit is $2,725,000 until 24-25, a fantastic price point.

I’m putting my reputation on this one (what little if any I have) in that Karel Vejmelka has superstar level potential. Yep, I said that. 

In my book, with the Penguins or at least any other hockey club, he’s a Vezina trophy winner.

He’s a hidden gem tucked away in the desert amongst the tumbleweeds where no one looks. I’ve had my eye on Vejmelka for quite some time now. Despite what any stats may say, he makes the big saves and in spectacular fashion.

But what are the stats? Well this season he had 18(W) 24(L), well that doesn’t sound too good does it? Remember he plays for the Arizona Coyotes, so in fact it is indeed good to get that roster 18 wins. Outside of the amazing talents in Clayton Keller and Nick Schmaltz, there isn’t much to behold in the sands of Phoenix. 

As for his save percentage (SV%) he had a .899, and his GAA was 3.43. Yea, not great but again I will mention the team he plays for is not known for defense, or really anything for that matter. But here is an impressive stat, Karel Vejmelka had 3 shutouts. Yes, you heard that right, Karel Vejmelka managed 3 shutouts with no defense and on the Coyotes.

For perspective, the great Andrei Vasilevskiy this season had 4 shutouts and on a much better team in the Tampa Bay Lightning.

And the teams Vejmelka acquired those shutouts from are the New York Islanders on 24 shots, the Carolina Hurricanes on 36 shots, and St. Louis Blues on 33 shots. Those are impressive, especially against the Hurricanes as they are no slouches, and this was before Andrei Svechnikov’s injury.

We need to point out specific games, so we can look at Vejmelka specifically rather than Arizona as a team. Essentially games that Karel Vejmelka stole, so obviously some of the biggest steals would be the aforementioned shutout victories. But let’s take a closer look, dive into the big teams.

In his third game of the season he stole 2 points from the Toronto Maple Leafs with 26(SV) on 28 shots, for a .929 SV%. Not bad.

Then just three games later he steals one from the Florida Panthers, 41(SV) on 42 shots with a .976 SV%. That’s right, almost rocked a shutout against Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk and the Panthers.

4 games after that he pulled one off vs the Buffalo Sabers with goal scoring super star Tage Thompson, with 32(SV) on 33 shots with a .970 SV%, yet again almost pulling off a shutout against another good team, seeing a trend?

Now you can go through his game log and notice he keeps a fairly high SV% above .910. Yes there are games where either Vejmelka played poorly which happens, or simply Arizona plays poorly which is a lot, hence why is overall GAA and SV% is lower. That doesn’t tell the whole story as I pointed out. 

One last game I wish to mention, or two games in a way. Early in the season, in fact the second game for Karel Vejmelka was against the mighty Bruins in which they fell swiftly and Vejmelka had a not so good SV% of .881. But Vejmelka and the Coyotes would get a shot at revenge in a rematch. Vejmelka did not waste an opportunity to return the favor against the Bruins, and have some redemption. He had 43(SV) on 46 shots for a .935 SV%. Yep, Karel Vejmelka took down the big bad Bruins, being one of the only 12 losses the Bruins had out of a 82 game record breaking season.

And he did it on the Arizona Coyotes, imagine what he could do on the Pittsburgh Penguins….

So let’s dig just a bit deeper. As I said his season SV% .899, but if we look at his SV% at even strength he’s a 0.911 much better. On top of this Vejmelka was 11th in shots against in the NHL, meaning of course he’s facing more shots because his team is weak defensively. Teams with weak to no defense allow more high danger shots as well they usually get more penalties.

Vejmelka’s powerplay SV% is .846, yikes. Now Arizona ended as the worst team in powerplay goals against with 81, so we know that they have the worst PK in the NHL. Now we’re starting to get to the bottom of his season SV% being low.  We know on average he’s a 0.911 even strength on a bad team, then nukes to a 0.846 when Arizona is on the penalty kill.

Despite all the failures of Arizona, and how bad the team is in almost every aspect, Vejmelka actually put up good numbers despite this, which is nothing short of extraordinary. 

The Penguins are ten times the team that Arizona is, even with a soft defense core, our group is still much better off then the Yotes. Even if the penguins made marginal changes, and Karel Vejmelka was the only addition. 

In my opinion you’re in the playoffs from one player, just one change, so if you were able to add even more in front…well who knows.