Keep playing Alex Nedeljkovic until he gives you a reason not to play him

He is simply playing better hockey right now.

The Pittsburgh Penguins have somehow found a way to crawl themselves back into the Eastern Conference playoff race and there are two primary reasons for that.

Well, three if you count the rest of the teams in that playoff race being just as mediocre, if not more mediocre, than the Penguins have been.

The first is obviously Sidney Crosby.

The captain is putting the team on his back and carrying it with a herculean effort that would probably give him serious MVP consideration if this team somehow stumbles into a playoff spot. Hell, he might actually win the thing.

The second is goalie Alex Nedeljkovic who has actually helped stabilize the position and given them some competent play in goal. At times, it has been better than competent as he has helped bail out some poor defensive zone coverage and some defensive breakdowns. As long as he is doing that, the net should belong to him. Especially when you take into account just how much Tristan Jarry has struggled over the past few weeks, continuing his career-long trend of fading in the second half of seasons.

Unless Nedeljkovic is sick or injured, he should be playing until his play slips.

Like or not, the Penguins are back in the playoff race and as long as that is the case their priority is going to be trying to secure one of those spots. That means they are not going to be in a position to worry about feelings, or contracts, or whatever roles were predetermined at the start of the season.

Jarry might have the big contract. Nedeljkovic might be the backup and a pending free agent. But right now at this time, when the points matter the most, the latter is outplaying the former by a pretty big margin. That is the only thing that should matter.

And it is not like Nedeljkovic has been lighting it up, either. It is an incredibly low bar we are setting here. Since the beginning of March he has managed only an .888 save percentage, which would be one of the worst in the NHL since that point.

But that is still better than the .870 mark that Jarry has since then. And to Nedeljkovic’s credit, he has upped his game over the past couple of weeks with a .916 mark in his past six starts since he started this run of playing time. In a couple of those games he was one of the biggest reasons the Penguins even had a chance to get a point or two.

This whole situation also creates another big concern for the offseason and going into next season.

This is yet another season where, for one reason or another, the Penguins have not been able to count on Jarry down the stretch run of the season, either due to injury, ineffectiveness, or both. He is still signed for four more years at $5.375 million per season against the salary cap. How do you possibly approach this in the offseason? The easy answer that has been thrown around is re-signing Nedeljkovic and trading Jarry. But that is way easier said than done because any team in the goalie market that might have an interest in trading for Jarry could just as easily sign Nedeljkovic. It is also going to be a huge problem finding a taker for that contract.

You might be stuck here.

If that does end up being the case I still go back to what I said earlier this week and wondering if a better platoon partner that is capable of playing in more games and splitting the starts 50/50 could help Jarry. It’s not the calendar months that wear him down. It is the playing time. If you can create a 50/50 split that might keep him fresher for these later season games and give both him and the team a better chance.

But that is also easier said than done because the goalie market is always a total crap shoot where nothing ever really makes sense or goes as planned.

That is all also a discussion for a later day anyway. Right now the focus on this season should produce a very simple result when it comes to the Penguins’ starting goaltender — keep playing Nedeljkovic until he gives you a reason to stop playing him.