When it comes to goalies, coach’s options both good
Mike Sullivan will get the question before every Penguins game from now until the playoffs and perhaps beyond. Who is your goaltender? Sullivan loves the fact there is no bad answer. He can’t go wrong with Tristan Jarry or Matt Murray.
“We feel comfortable right now that we’ve got a really strong tandem,” Sullivan said. “We think it’s a competitive advantage for our team.”
Jim Rutherford, a former goaltender a lifetime ago, took that one step further.
“You need depth in goal without question. The really good thing about what’s going on right now with us is we have two really good goalies that are rested. To me,
when you’re going into the playoffs and if you have two healthy No. 1 goalies that have not been overworked, then you have an advantage.”
Remember Murray and Marc Andre-Fleury and how well that worked out in the 2017 run to the Stanley Cup? Of course, you do. Goaltenders are like starting pitchers and running backs. A team never has enough.
“We needed three goaltenders the one year,” Rutherford said, referencing Jeff Zatkoff winning Game 1 of the first round against the New York Rangers in the 2016 Cup run.
In 1991, the Penguins’ first Cup year, Tom Barrasso won 12 games and Frank Pietrangelo the other four. Pietrangelo won Game 6 of the first round in New Jersey when the Penguins were facing elimination and always will be remembered for “The Save” when he robbed Peter Stastny.
In 2017, Fleury started the first 15 games and led the Penguins by Columbus and almost unbelievably Washington in the first two rounds. Murray took over after Fleury was benched in the second period of Game 3 against Ottawa after giving up four goals on nine shots. Murray won the final three games of that series and got four wins against Nashville in the Cup final, pitching shutouts in Games 6 and 7 against the Predators.
It’s astonishing to me that there are Penguins fans who still want to see Rutherford trade Jarry or preferably Murray— never really a fan favorite — for a big-time goal scorer before the Feb. 24 deadline. I’m keeping both. I’m convinced Rutherford will keep both even though Murray and Jarry will be up for significant pay raises after the season when each will be a restricted free agent. So what if Rutherford acknowledged it “certainly will be tricky and difficult” to keep both goalies at that point? This isn’t about next season. It’s about going for the Cup right now with a team that’s good enough to win it.
Murray started this season strong before floundering. Jarry stepped in, started all but three games in December, became an All-Star and was primarily responsible for the Penguins going 18-6-4 when Sidney Crosby was out after sports hernia surgery. Lately, Murray has been playing better hockey, going 6-0 in his past six starts with a 2.63 goals-against average and .922 save percentage. He was especially good in the third period and in three overtimes in those wins, stopping 78 of 82 shots, a .951 save percentage.
“He handled it really, really well,” Rutherford said of Murray, at least temporarily, losing the starting job. “He’s a team player. He wants to win. He’s a champion …
“He’s work hard all year, but, if you track him now, he’s really working hard. He’s tracking in the right direction. I would expect he’s going to have a big second half.”
Murray was the winning goaltender against Washington — the NHL’s best team — Sunday afternoon in D.C. He stopped Garnet Hathaway and Jakub Vrana on breakaways and had nice saves against Alex Ovechkin and John Carlson in a sequence.
Murray also beat Boston — the league’s second-best team — in his previous start Jan. 19. That was the day he let in two early goals and was jeered unfairly and rather viciously by the PPG Paints Arena crowd before regrouping to stop 24 of the Bruins’ final 25 shots.
If I’m betting, I would say Murray will be the starting goaltender in Game 1 of the playoffs. He’s more proven in big, pressure games than Jarry. His name is on the Stanley Cup twice.
Sullivan isn’t looking that far ahead, of course. The only game he’s worried about is the one at Tampa Bay Thursday night against a Lightning team that has become the favorite to win the Cup. I have no idea which goaltender Sullivan will select for that one, but I do know this: Any coach in the NHL would love to have his choices.