December 19, 2025 by Ryan Lotsberg

Some Edmonton Oilers fans were hesitant about the team acquiring Tristan Jarry because of his reputation for being injury prone. Sure enough, Jarry was placed on injured reserve on Friday after leaving his third start for the Oilers in the second period on Thursday with an apparent lower body injury.

According to Ryan Rishaug and Mark Spector, Jarry flew back to Edmonton on Friday for further examination. The severity of the injury is unknown at this time, and the team is not sure how long Jarry is expected to be unavailable.

Naturally, this series of events has those hesitant Oilers fans pointing to Jarry’s reputation for being injury prone and exclaiming that this was the risk of getting Jarry. Here’s a thorough dive into Jarry’s NHL injury history.

Related: Jarry for Skinner is a lateral move for the Oilers

FOX Sports references an undisclosed injury to Jarry on January 3, 2018. The Pittsburgh Penguins had games on January 2, January 4, and January 5, 2018. Jarry left the January 2 game against the Philadelphia Flyers with an undisclosed injury after playing 34:34, but he did not miss any full games. He backed up Casey DeSmith in the first game of the team’s back-to-back, then started the game on January 5. I don’t count this as an actual injury because Jarry did not miss any full games.

Injury 1: Jarry missed a two-game set against the Boston Bruins on April 1 and April 3, 2021 during the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season due to an upper body injury.

Illness 1: Jarry entered the NHL’s COVID protocol on December 27, 2021. He cleared on January 2, 2022. The Penguins had a break from December 19, 2021 until January 2, 2022. Jarry did not dress for their game on January 2, but he cleared COVID protocol that day, so it’s not totally fair to say he missed it due to COVID. Regardless, that was one game missed if you really want to add it to the total.

Injury 2: He missed the Penguins’ final six games of the 2021-22 regular season with a foot injury. Jarry returned to the lineup for Game 7 of the Penguins’ first round series against the New York Rangers, a 4-3 overtime loss. Add the six previous playoff games to the tally.

Injury 3: According to PuckPedia, Jarry was placed on IR retroactive to January 2, 2023 on January 11, 2023 for a lower body injury. That injury kept him out for seven games before being reactivated on January 20, 2023.

Injury 4: Jarry played two more games before sustaining an upper body injury and being a late scratch for the Penguins’ game against the Florida Panthers on January 24, 2023. He missed eight games as a result of that injury. He was back in action on February 20, 2023.

Illness 2: He missed two games due to illness on April 1 and April 2, 2024. Those two games were part of a stretch where Jarry only made one start in the final twelve games of the season for the Penguins. He dressed as a backup in nine of those games, missed two games with the illness, and played in one game.

Injury 5: Jarry missed seven games for the Penguins between November 3 and November 26, 2025 with an undisclosed injury.

Jarry didn’t play for thirteen games between October 16 and November 15, 2024, but that was not injury related. The Penguins were carrying three goaltenders, and Jarry was sent to the AHL on a non-injury conditioning loan because Jarry had such a poor start to the season. Such loans have to be approved by the NHL as a means to be certain that the team is not trying to circumvent the cap by doing so, which the Penguins were not. The Penguins had been carrying three goaltenders for the entire season up to that point, and Jarry was counting towards the team’s cap hit while in the AHL.

That was a separate AHL stint from the one Jarry had after being placed on waivers on January 15, 2025. He was in the AHL until being recalled on February 8, 2025.

Jarry has a grand total of 30 regular season games missed due to injury over his ten-year NHL career, 33 if you must add the COVID game and the other two illness-related absences. Adding the six missed playoff games in 2022 brings the total up to 39. That accounts for five injuries and two illnesses.

I’ll add that Jarry only played in one game in his first NHL season, and he only played in two games in his third NHL season. Those don’t count as full seasons in my book, although they technically count as “seasons” towards his NHL career. This is Jarry’s sixth injury in eight full NHL seasons, his fifth injury in the last four years, and his fourth injury in the last three years. It’s also his second injury this season. We don’t know if this is a re-aggravation of his November injury or not.

While the injuries have been frequent for Jarry, he has never missed more than eight regular season games at a time and no more than twelve total games at a time. Hopefully for his sake and the sake of the Oilers, his latest injury doesn’t top the list. 

Immediate ramifications of the Jarry injury

Being placed on IR means that Jarry will be out for at least a week. The first game after the break is on December 27 in Calgary. The Oilers have the immediate problem of having to play a back-to-back this weekend with a game in Minnesota on Saturday and a home game against the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday. They also play against the Calgary Flames on Tuesday. After that, they get a three day Christmas break.

The Oilers placed Jack Roslovic on LTIR to make room for the team to call up Connor Ingram on Friday. Ingram’s numbers in Bakersfield haven’t been good this season (4-5-2, .856 sv%, 4.04 GAA), but neither has the defensive play in front of him and fellow running mate Matt Tomkins. The Oilers will see what the 28-year old can give them behind a team that has been much improved defensively recently. If Ingram shows well, then they might be able to ride out the Jarry injury with their existing pieces.

The #Oilers have placed goaltender Tristan Jarry on injured reserve, moved forward Jack Roslovic to long-term injured reserve & recalled goaltender Connor Ingram from the @Condors. pic.twitter.com/NsYmPRTvQN

— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) December 19, 2025

If Ingram shows that his game isn’t where it needs to be to compete in the NHL at this time, then the Oilers will have to lean on Calvin Pickard until Jarry gets back.

If Jarry ends up being out for a while and Ingram and Pickard don’t seem up to the task, then the Oilers could be forced to make another move in net. The holiday roster freeze ends on December 27 when the Oilers visit the Flames. That’s the first game of a short two game trip with the other stop being in Winnipeg on December 29. Then they get a four day break before two more home games on January 3 and January 6, 2026.

There has been A LOT of smoke around a potential move that would send Alex Lyon to the Oilers. Perhaps it was rash to think that the Oilers would need to pull off such a trade before the holiday roster freeze starts at midnight tonight, but there’s still a strong chance that Lyon ends up being an Oiler before too long. If I had to make a prediction, such a trade would likely happen during that four day break from December 30 – January 3. The duo of Pickard and Ingram would have to survive five games, which is possible even in the worst of scenarios.

On TSN’s Insider Trading segment, Pierre LeBrun said that Lyon was a goalie of interest to the Oilers this past summer. That tells me that they might be thinking of upgrading on Pickard regardless of the Jarry injury. There has been enough chatter about Lyon coming to Edmonton throughout the season to suggest that could be a likely if not inevitable outcome, especially now that we know new Sabres GM Jarmo Kekäläinen wants to carry two goalies instead of three. The Jarry injury has just added a potential wrinkle to the plot, which would be a second side motivated to make this deal.

Related: Lyon to the Oilers makes too much sense to ignore

As noted in Jeff Ade’s piece yesterday, David Tomasek is the most logical roster player that would have to go back to Buffalo for financial reasons and because Tomasek is spending far more time in the press box than he would like to be in his first and potentially only NHL opportunity. The Sabres would likely seek other assets in addition to Tomasek as well.

Pickard would have to be waived and sent to Bakersfield or moved elsewhere if the Oilers were to acquire Lyon. Someone making as much or more than Kasperi Kapanen would also have to be moved to make space for Lyon. I’m sure the Oilers would prefer to keep Kapanen.

The next man up the salary list after that is Mattias Janmark. His $1.45 million cap hit this year and next would essentially offset Lyon’s cap hit in both seasons. Janmark has a ten-team no-trade clause, and Buffalo is almost certainly on it. He could be moved elsewhere in a separate trade to make the money work for the Oilers though.

That Janmark deal wouldn’t necessarily have to happen right away, but it would have to happen before all of Kapanen, Roslovic, Jake Walman, and Noah Philp are activated from LTIR to ensure the Oilers would be able to become cap compliant.