With Tristan Jarry potentially out for the start of the playoffs with a reported broken foot, the Penguins have a goaltending dilemma.

But it’s nobody’s fault.

Sure, GM Ron Hextall could have traded for a backup superior to Casey DeSmith. Perhaps Hextall should have.

But would that acquisition win a playoff series in Jarry’s absence?

You’re not getting Patrick Roy in his prime. You’re getting somebody like Carter Hutton.

It’s risk vs. reward. How far would the Penguins progress through the postseason even with Jarry at 100%? They haven’t won a playoff series since 2018.

So the Penguins prepare to go on the big kids’ rides with Kenny the Kangaroo in the blue paint. “You must be taller than…”

DeSmith isn’t a bad goalie. He’s just small. He’s listed at 6 feet, but he is clearly shorter.

DeSmith’s stats are OK, both this season and over his 92 career NHL games. But he’s never played in a Stanley Cup playoff game.

WHY DIDN’T THE PENGUINS GET MARC-ANDRE FLEURY BACK?

It’s a question worth asking, especially at a volume that’s loud and panicky.

Minnesota got Fleury from Chicago at the trade deadline for a conditional second-round pick. Could the Penguins have done the same?

Maybe. But Jarry wasn’t injured then.

The Penguins couldn’t get Fleury to be Jarry’s backup.

If the Penguins were dissatisfied with Jarry, then get Fleury and make him the starter. But Jarry ranks among the top 10 in all significant goalie stats. He’s done his part.

Fleury is also the reigning Vezina Trophy winner as the NHL’s top goalie. If you get Fleury, shouldn’t he start? (Somebody ask Minnesota. Fleury is inexplicably rotating with Cam Talbot.)

Had Fleury backed up Jarry, the citizens would have madly clamored for Fleury every time Jarry conceded a goal that was even a bit shaky. Jarry would have constantly looked over his shoulder.

The situation would have been unwieldy, unwise and unnecessary. (Caked with irony, too. Fleury used to be the fans’ scapegoat. But ever since he left, he’s been the Penguins’ savior in absentia.)

The Penguins need Fleury now, or any netminder superior to DeSmith. But who knew?

Fleury’s salary-cap hit of $7 million would have been impossible for the Penguins to fit. The Penguins had a tough time absorbing winger Ricard Rakell’s comparatively meager cap figure of $3.8 million. Players like Zach Aston-Reese and Dominik Simon moved to Anaheim as cap make-weights.

Rakell was a token get. Decent but far from a game-changer. Trading for Rakell was about giving the dressing room and fan base a jolt of energy and false optimism but little tangibly. (Although Rakell is a legit top-six forward. One was needed.)

The Penguins will do the best they can in the playoffs with DeSmith if it comes to that. It’s not like Jarry sparkled in last year’s first-round loss to the Islanders. Quite the opposite, in fact.

In short, crap happens.

The Penguins have lost four playoff series in a row, posting a 5-15 record in the process. They’re aging out. Organically disintegrating.

That’s nobody’s fault, either.

New owner Fenway Sports Group will fix things. You might not like how they do it. FSG will feel no debt to those preceding them or those still here.

That’s exactly as it should be.

The Penguins have nurtured the false hope of “one more run” for too many years. (In terms of acting pragmatically, the worst thing that could happen is winning a playoff series.) It’s time to forge ahead, perhaps by way of first moving backward.

That’s a page from Penguins history that’s worth repeating.

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