Are Pens mulling a goalie switch?

PITTSBURGH •From Marc-André Fleury to Pekka Rinne to Matt Murray, it seems no goalie in these playoffs is safe from having his starting job questioned.

And so after Murray allowed nine goals in the last two games, Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan was asked if he was ready to make another change in net for Game 5.

“We haven’t lost games because of our goaltending,” Sullivan said in a conference call Tuesday. “That’s my thought.”

Does that mean Murray will be the starter Thursday?

“Well, like anything, we make our lineup decisions on a game-by-game basis,” Sullivan said. “The one comment I will make is that we didn’t lose the game last night because of our goaltending.”

After replacing Fleury in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference final against the Ottawa Senators, Murray won three of the next four games and had a .946 save percentage. But he has allowed 12 goals in four games against the Nashville Predators in the Stanley Cup final, with a .902 save percentage.

Like Rinne, who struggled on the road but was much better at home, Murray allowed four goals in the first two games in Pittsburgh.

“I think the goaltending position can be such an important position by nature of how the game’s played,” Sullivan said. “Certainly I thought (in Game 4 on Monday night), you know, it was a case we felt as though Matt had a solid game, but Pekka Rinne had a tremendous game.”

“I think maybe early in the series, you could probably point in the other direction. These guys do have an impact on their team’s ability to have success. I think that’s the nature of playoff hockey. That’s the nature of hockey in general. So it’s such an important position, you know, by nature.

“It might be the most important position in all of sports because that position can single-handedly change the outcome of a game, as we’ve seen on a number of different occasions throughout the course of this playoffs, with all different series.

“We believe in the guys that we have. We’ve got — we think, one of the strengths of our team is in our goaltending position. So we just got to try to do our best to focus on the things that we can control, and that’s that one game in front of us.”

The Penguins need to find a way to get Phil Kessel scoring again. But don’t expect Sidney Crosby to help out in that regard.

While most expected the two would play a lot together when Kessel was traded to Pittsburgh, Sullivan said Kessel and Crosby are more effective when apart.

“Well, our experience as a staff has been that there hasn’t been a ton of chemistry between the two when they have been together,” Sullivan said. “We have thrown them together at times. We also believe that when we do separate them, we tend to create better balance amongst our group, that makes us more difficult to play against.”

Kessel has played most of the playoffs on a line with Evgeni Malkin. But the two were split up in Game 4, with Kessel playing on a line with Chris Kunitz and centre Matt Cullen, in hopes of giving the Penguins depth in scoring.