It's Finally Gone Down: Tristan Jarry Traded to Oilers — Here's Why

We've been hearing the rumors for weeks now. The Edmonton Oilers were talking about acquiring veteran goaltender Tristan Jarry from the Pittsburgh Penguins. But neither team seemed ready to pull the trigger. Finally, that shot has been fired, and Jarry is an Oiler.

Hearing the #oilers are sending Stuart Skinner, Brett Kulak and a 2nd-round pick to Pittsburgh in this Tristan Jarry trade.
— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) December 12, 2025

The Oilers also sent defenseman Brett Kulak and a second-round pick to the Penguins and received forward Sam Poulin as well. There was no salary retained by Pittsburgh, so Jarry comes with a $5.375 million cap hit for another two seasons after this one. That necessitated moving out Kulak ($2.75M cap hit) as well to help with the cap situation.

Insider Elliotte Friedman explained on The Fan Hockey Show today how the Oilers changed their thought process about the whole thing and came to this decision:

The idea of a Jarry to Edmonton trade has been on the table for some time. But what finally put this over the finish line is that they decided that it wasn't going to be Skinner AND Jarry (as their goaltending tandem), it was going to be Skinner FOR Jarry. They pivoted. They knew that Pittsburgh was not retaining (salary) and they said, 'you know, what, we're going to do it a different way.'

And as for why the Penguins finally decided to do it:

I think that Pittsburgh had decided that there was a decent chance they were going to move on (from Jarry). They have three other goalies: They have (Arturs) Silovs, they have (Sergei) Murashov, who has started to play and got his first shutout this year, they really like him, and they like (Joel) Blomqvist too...
So I think they looked at it as, they were ready to move on from Jarry because (a) the injuries, and (b) because he was kind of blocking a couple of young goalies they have. They really like these goalies... Pittsburgh saw their crease jammed up, and the guy that they most wanted to move on from there was Jarry.

The Oilers then went out and acquired a defenseman to replace Kulak, in Spencer Stastney from the Nashville Predators for a third-round pick.

TRADE 🔄 The #Oilers have also acquired defenceman Spencer Stastney from the @PredsNHL in exchange for a third-round draft selection in 2027. pic.twitter.com/f8MkGxBl02
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) December 12, 2025