TORONTO -- Evgeni Malkin had no intention of ungluing Matt Murray. Just undressing him.
And even then, when he skated in alone on his goaltender in a loose portion of the Penguins' already optional skate Thursday morning at Scotiabank Arena, it wasn't until the final couple strides that he'd made up his mind to go full-on Russian Bear. At which point, he went forehand, backhand, forehand, followed by a slooooooooooooow gorgeous glide across the goal line.
Fun stuff, right?
Eh, maybe not. See, once Murray finally untangled himself, he reached back with his big blade to fish out the puck, then animatedly flicked it toward Malkin, who was grinning as he skated away up the right boards.
But hey, what do you know, both were doing the bulk of the grinning hours later.
Malkin scored twice, set up the other.
Murray stopped all 38 shots against the NHL's No. 1 team and No. 1 offense.
And maybe it took form with that morning exchange, as both would confess to me afterward, each in his own way, that it showed a side of Murray no one in this little world had seen in a while.
"Yeah, I was a little feisty about that," Murray told me of Malkin's move, this after the game. "But that's OK. I'll get him next time."
Next time?
"I'm doing it again," Malkin told me a minute later, glancing across the room where Murray was still peeling off his pads. "Tomorrow at practice. Maybe I'll do it before every game."
Ha!
Here's what I put on our app's live feed as Murray spirited off the ice at the morning skate, his eyes wide, his stride purposeful:
He did start, of course, for the first time in a dozen days, for the first time since conceding those 11 goals to the Capitals and Canadiens. He missed one game to a concussion after that, but then, even after he was cleared, Mike Sullivan strikingly sat him two more games and stuck with Casey DeSmith. Saturday in Montreal, Sullivan explained that he wanted to ease Murray back into the mix. Tuesday at home against the Canucks, Sullivan stated flatly that he wanted to go with the hot hand.
Murray didn't complain publicly, but it hasn't exactly been difficult to read his displeasure.
When asked about his status Wednesday in Cranberry, he caustically replied, "That’s Coach’s decision. I just work as hard as I can in practice to try to get ready for when my name is called."
Even after this game, when asked why he appeared as wound up as he did in the skate, he came back with, "I've been healthy for a while now and still haven't played. So maybe I was a little antsy, a little anxious to get in there and play again."
I'd never subscribed to the common theory that Murray needed Marc-Andre Fleury around to push him to be his best. But I have always believed that a mad Murray is the best Murray. I've been writing that since the 2016 Stanley Cup playoffs, when his bouncebacks from bad showings became the stuff of franchise history, and it still holds true. No, he doesn't lose his mind trying too hard. If anything, it's the opposite. He finds that extra focus. He hones in on each shot, each chance.
Things like this happen:
That's Murray stoning Toronto's Zach Hyman once, twice, then a third time with a spectacular outstretched left pad. The score was still 1-0, and five minutes had expired from a second period that the Maple Leafs had begun to command. If that goes in, maybe everything changes.
But it didn't. And that's because, unlike Murray's first two games, when he easily could have been absolved of nearly all of those 11 goals, this time he made the save that was above reasonable expectations. Just as he did to Auston Matthews, John Tavares and Mitch Marner, half of the league's top six scorers, the latter with an honest-to-gosh gem with the glove.
This is mandatory, mind you. This isn't optional for these Penguins. One defensive effort aside -- and my goodness, was it 18 skaters and 60 minutes deep -- they aren't about to transform into defensive stalwarts. Nor should they, with all their skill. They'll need Murray to be at his best to fully reclaim that "swagger" Sullivan's been seeking for a couple weeks now.
Jack Johnson probably put it best when he told me, "When Muzz is like that, anytime you get goaltending like that from anybody, it raises your confidence, your level of play. You feel like you can go out there and make things happen."
Kind of like this:
That's poor Hyman again, this time airborne. What a night that guy had, as our Matt Sunday documented.
Murray would be the last man out of the locker room, taking far, far longer than the usual to unstrap. At one point, he dropped a pad, paused and stared ahead silently for a spell. He wasn't exactly a hard read in that setting, either.
Meanwhile, in the hall just outside, Sullivan, who seldom wings it with situations like this, looked and sounded very much like a man who wound up with his desired outcome, even if that meant ticking off a player he respects as much as anyone on the roster.
"I thought Matt was terrific," Sullivan spoke to the big bank of cameras and microphones. "That's ... "
He hesitated a second.
"That's the kind of performance we've grown accustomed to with Matt since he's been our goalie. I thought he was really locked in tonight. He saw the puck. He was fighting through the traffic. He was really solid."
And did Sullivan think Murray was motivated by sitting?
"Oh, I don't know. I didn't ask him that. I know Matt's a real competitive guy. He wants the net. And we want him to have it."
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THREE STARS
My curtain calls go to …
1. Matt Murray
Penguins goaltender
The 38-save shutout, including 13 on high-danger scoring chances for Toronto, was the seventh of his NHL career, the 13th if including playoffs and, from the opposite view, just the third time the Maple Leafs failed to score over the past two seasons.
Murray also was named No. 1 star by the Maple Leafs and, infinitely more important, was given the gladiator helmet by Phil Kessel:
The Warrior Helmet has found a new home with @mattmurray_30 ? pic.twitter.com/KXVrIrX2Kd
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) October 19, 2018
2. Evgeni Malkin
Penguins center
It's not so much the three points -- his second goal was a gift, with Nazem Kadri backhanding a pass into his own empty net from center ice late in regulation -- but rather, the authority with which he skated and dictated. It was evident from his first shift and a power move around Nikita Zaitsev to try to stuff a puck behind Frederik Andersen. Minutes later, he had a similar chance and blew it through him. The Russian Bear showed up at night, too.
3. Kris Letang
Penguins defenseman
I'll soon run out of superlatives for how he's looked, so I'll keep some in the tank and simply share stats: A goal, an assist, a plus-2 rating, a 62.2 Corsi For percentage -- representing team shots taken and allowed while on the ice -- and all kinds of offensive support.
THE INJURIES
• Penguins: Justin Schultz, defenseman, (fractured left leg) is out four months.
• Maple Leafs: Frederik Andersen, goaltender, (knee) returned after missing one game.
THE GOOD
Would anyone believe ... the defending?
The Maple Leafs had been 6-1 largely through scoring 4.71 goals per game, and I'll surmise that the Penguins entered in the peculiar position of being humbled, one, by all the league-wide hype over Toronto and, two, their own miserably inconsistent levels to date. But whether it was one, both or neither, the result was the result. And it included -- get this -- a blocked shots advantage of 22-7.
"I thought we played hard," Sullivan said. "We played the game the right way."
"We did everything good defensively," Malkin said.
Take it from the other guys, too.
"They were on us. They defended us," Tavares said. "We were excited about tonight. It’s just a sour taste when you don’t execute and don’t win some of those battles when you need to and find a way to get it done. But give them credit."
"I thought their team played good," Mike Babcock spoke from the podium. "I didn't think there was tons of room out there tonight. They played fast. They played with good structure. They kept us on the outside a bit. I liked their players. I thought their players played good. ... They're a more veteran, polished playoff team than we are, and it showed."
THE BAD
Crosby still doesn't have a goal?
Neither does Hornqvist?
Wow, no, both were terrific, as I address over in Grind.
The closest I'll come to a negative from the Penguins' perspective is that Bryan Rust continues to look lost and might never score again, and that Dominik Simon and Daniel Sprong were benched for the better part of the game's second half while Sullivan protected the one-goal lead. With Sprong the rookie, that can be understood, but Simon's supposed to be a 200-foot player.
Still, we're talking tiny complaints here.
THE PLAY
The only goal that mattered came at 11:42 of the first.
Six seconds earlier, a power play started and Crosby cleaned Par Lindholm in the right dot to pull the puck back to Letang. It was then shoved below the right circle to Malkin. With Letang sliding into the slot to pose a target and Hornqvist already there, both serving as distractions, Malkin cut before Ron Hainsey could adjust and simply rammed the puck through Andersen:
Did he see five-hole?
"No, I didn't see a space," Malkin replied, candid as ever. "I see the defenseman jumped to me. It's a little bit of a chance to try to beat him one-on-one, a little bit dangerous. And Coach told me before the game, 'You need to shoot more.' So I'm trying to shoot. Maybe he wasn't ready for my shot. Maybe he was surprised. Sid scored so many goals like this."
The Penguins' power play, No. 1 in the NHL last season, is off to a 4 for 15 start, or 26.7 percent.
THE CALL
It was a non-call, actually, that loomed large in the final ticks of the first period: Jake Guentzel high-sticked Hyman -- yeah, him again -- in the forehead, felling him and drawing blood. But when Brian Dumoulin took a shot into Hyman almost immediately afterward, that hit Hyman, too, and it's likely the on-ice officials thought he was hurt by the puck instead.
It absolutely should have been a double-minor on Guentzel, who, even if Hyman lifted his stick, remains responsible for his stick per the NHL Rule Book.
The Leafs protested mildly, their fans loudly, to no avail, and a four-minute power play was lost.
That's not all that could have been lost. Hyman later revealed that the stick caught him just above the right eye, requiring seven stitches but fortunately not more.
"I got lucky" he said.
Hyman added that both referees later apologized to him for missing the call.
"You always want them to get it right," Babcock said of the officials. "Those things happen. I think all victories you have to earn."
THE OTHER SIDE
Babcock became the latest NHL coach to pull his goaltender far earlier than the historic norm of the final minute and change of regulation. Advanced analytics, predictably, is leading the way, as more studies increasingly show coaches wait much longer than needed for the tactic to offer the greatest percentage chance of success.
In this case, Babcock called off Andersen with 2:56 on the clock, palpably surprising even this richly knowledgeable crowd as he was heading to the bench. Kadri's own goal happened 1:03 later, and Letang fired into the still-vacated net a minute after that.
Too soon?
I'll respectfully allow this to be placed in the growing pile of data, but I'll also add that there might be merit in considering the opponent. If it's a team that has, say, generational scorers who can split the open net from anywhere on the ice, maybe an adjustment is in order.
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins will practice here today, 1 p.m., just up the road at the Coca-Cola Coliseum, home to the AHL's Toronto Marlies. Tomorrow, they'll travel out to Alberta and, each of the two days after that, they'll practice in the resort town of Banff, just west of Calgary. The Western Canada portion of the trip begins Tuesday night in Edmonton.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Penguins at Maple Leafs, Toronto, Oct. 18, 2018 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS