With a ball cap pulled down low over his head, Matt Murray looked up to answer a question from his locker stall late Wednesday night, a small smile escaping from his lips.
"Um, I don't know," he answered when I asked him if he thought it was open season on NHL goaltenders. "I'm not going to say anything more about that, thanks."
He bit his lip, literally and figuratively. That's all right. He had already said plenty.
"My priority is to stop the puck, so I have to focus on that first," Murray said after making 33 saves in the Penguins' impressive 4-2 win over the the Lightning, the NHL leaders in points (76), goals per game (4.0) and power-play percentage (29.5). "But if I'm able to recognize that a guy's going to hit me, if I can brace myself, that's what I've got to do. They're obviously not calling anything. So if I have to, I guess, that's what I've got to do."
Murray is fond of saying that he doesn't play hockey, he plays goalie. But, boy, he's still got an awful lot of hockey player in him. It hasn't always shown, but it's starting to.
Besides winning two Stanley Cup rings his first two seasons, Murray has staked his reputation as being cerebral and mature beyond his years. He's at his best when he's tracking the puck and using his technique to make saves look easy. Which, of course, isn't easy.
But there is one thing that rubs the mild-mannered goalie the wrong way: Not being able to do his job.
Due to circumstances largely beyond his control, Murray also a reputation -- fairly or not -- for being injury-prone. He's missed significant time over each of his first four seasons, including this season with his second concussion in a calendar year. If his recent starts are any indication though, he's making damned sure that he's not going to miss any more.
Nah, Murray is never going to be confused with mercurial goalies of the past like Billy Smith and Ron Hextall but he seems to have made a concerted effort to better protect himself and establish that the crease is his. With players skating at speeds never seen before and more and more goals being scored from inside the blue paint, it's a matter of survival.
Wednesday night was just the latest example of this less kinder, less gentler Murray.
With the Penguins taking a surprising -- but welcome -- 3-0 lead on first-period goals by Riley Sheahan, Phil Kessel and Sidney Crosby, the Lightning tried to raise the temperature inside PPG Paints Arena a few hundred degrees on the coldest night of the year. Trying to wake themselves out of an 11-day slumber, the Lightning were hitting everything -- Murray, too.
This is Alex Killorn, on his knees, driving to the net at 4:20 of the second period. Apparently, that didn't sit well with Brian Dumoulin, who responded with a crosscheck of his own:
"Obviously, they were trying to get to his head a little," Dumoulin was saying. "They were crashing the net hard. He did a great job of fighting off pucks and making that first save for us. He stood tall and made the saves when he had to."
Here, the 177-pound Murray was a little more proactive in taking down Mathieu Joseph as he drove the net with a little under 13 minutes to go in the second:
"I'm not used to throwing hits," Murray said. "They just kind of came in and weren't going to stop. If I can see it coming, I have to protect myself. That's all I tried to do."
Having dealt away Jamie Oleksiak earlier this week, the Penguins, collectively, answered a few questions about team toughness Wednesday.
"They were trying to be physical on us, especially when we got those first few goals," Dumoulin was saying. "They tried to answer back physically. I thought our group did a great job responding. I think everyone from the forwards down to the goalie, we contributed and did our jobs."
Goalies usually aren't accounted for in the team’s toughness department but Murray has clearly reached his boiling point with what he feels is increasing goalie interference. In the Penguins' win at Arizona on Jan. 18, Murray took an uncharacteristic unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after the Coyotes tried to take liberties with him. That night, he had words for referee Tim Peel.
"That wasn't a planned thing," Murray was telling me after Tuesday's practice. "I just took one too many hits that night and no one was doing anything about it, so I felt the need to stand up for myself. I feel like I'm getting hit a lot this year. I felt bad about it after and probably could have done it differently, for sure. I just don't want to get hit."
As a goalie, Murray says he's well aware that the camera is always on him and how he responds in certain situations will reflect on him and his reputation. But that stuff over the glass, he says, is just "white noise." What he cares about is showing his teammates that he doesn't get rattled.
"Sometimes it's not as easy as other times," said Murray, who improved to 11-2 in his last 13 starts. "I just try to keep even-keeled. I think that's important for goalies. You want to be a rock back there. That's what I try to do. Have confidence and compete."
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THREE STARS
My curtain calls go to …
1.Kris Letang
Penguins defenseman
A two-point night while playing 27:28. Ho-hum. He had a tremendous assist on Sheahan's goal and matched team history with his goal (see The Play).
2. Evgeni Malkin
Penguins center
A strong response from the slumping center after a brutal game vs. the Devils. Recorded his 600th career assist becoming the fourth Russian to accomplish the feat and in the fewest games at 834.
3. Phil Kessel
Penguins right winger
Kessel scored an opportunistic goal and added one tremendous assist (seriously, read The Play).
THE INJURIES
• Derick Brassard, center, sat out with an upper body injury and is considered day-to-day. (See The Call, below.)
• Justin Schultz, defenseman, skated Wednesday morning in a red, non-contact jersey. Sullivan called it a “big step.” Next up for Schultz is to participate in a full practice, which could come as soon as Thursday.
• Zach Aston-Reese, right winger, is out with a broken left hand.
THE GOOD
Murray wasn't the only one who refused to get pushed around. I'll let DK get into the Penguins' collective pushback.
THE BAD
Two nights earlier, Mike Sullivan said he was "probably" at his breaking point after the Penguins' power play yielded its league-worst 11th short-handed goal. But after not practicing special teams Tuesday, there was little chance that Sullivan was going to mix up the power-play units.
He didn't really. But after Wednesday's game, he might still be considering it.
Already leading 3-0 and with a chance to put the game away early with Ryan McDonagh already off for high-sticking Patric Hornqvist, Cedric Paquette drilled Letang in the left corner. A fairly heated scrum ensued, but the only penalty to come out of it was Paquette for interference at 9:26 of the first period.
That gave the Penguins a two-man advantage for 1:34. But true to their 0-for-5 form against the Devils, the Penguins -- with their traditional No. 1 unit of Crosby, Malkin, Letang, Kessel and Hornqvist -- couldn't muster a single shot.
In all, the Penguins wound up going 0-2 on the power play. They earned their second chance in the third period but had a four-goal lead and Malkin was in the box for fighting Steven Stamkos, of all people. Sullivan played it conservative by using two defensemen to protect the lead.
"If we sense it's the prudent move with that kind of lead to go with two D, we'll go with two D," Sullivan said. "A lot of it's circumstantial, but tonight it was two-fold."
That proved to be a prescient move as the Lightning added late goals by J.T. Miller and Stamkos to make things close at 4-2.
Whether Sullivan legitimately considered breaking up the top unit or was just calling them out won't be known until the Penguins practice Thursday in Cranberry. That's if they do, in fact, practice special teams.
THE PLAY
Kessel is renowned for the quick release on his shot and, as we've covered many times, is also a very underrated playmaker.
But what made Kessel's assist on Letang's goal at 6:02 of the second period so spectacular wasn't the pass, though it was a pretty nice feed that found the defenseman joining the rush at the right circle. It was this:
Notice all the possession time that Kessel — and Kessel alone — had beforehand. He kicked the puck up to his skates, lost the puck, regained the puck and then skated through all three zones before dishing off to Letang.
That was the Penguins' fourth goal -- on just their eighth shot on Andrei Vasilevskiy -- and it was the 108th of Letang's career, tying him with Paul Coffey for the most by a defenseman in Penguins history.
"It's pretty surreal," Letang said. "Growing up watching him, I never thought I would have my name next to his. It's just surreal."
Also surreal was that Coffey was in the house as part of the Mario Lemieux fantasy camp along with Kendall Coyne Schofield, who met with Letang in the dressing room afterward.
THE CALL
At long last, Teddy Blueger made his NHL debut, which Taylor Haase will get into more in Drive to the Net.
But Blueger only made his debut after Brassard didn't take pregame warmups and was subsequently -- and very curiously -- ruled out with what the team is calling an upper body injury. Brassard had practiced in full a day earlier, spoke to reporters afterward and, after Wednesday's morning skate, Sullivan confirmed that all players were available, including his third-line center.
Sullivan tried to explained it this way: "He's been dealing with just, uh, a nagging upper body injury the last few days. The reason I didn't divulge it this morning was because there was a chance he was going to play. If he did play, you know, we would rather keep that type of information to ourselves. But we chose to hold him out. But he's been dealing with this for a couple of days. Right now, his status is day to day. We'll see how he is tomorrow and then go from there."
Nothing to see here, folks, move along.
Obviously, Brassard has been the subject of many trade rumors and sitting him out for whatever reason only fueled further speculation about his future in Pittsburgh.
Monday night, Brassard scored his ninth goal of the season but also took a five-minute major for elbowing Sami Vatanen, though he actually hit the Devils defenseman with his left shoulder. New Jersey scored twice on the ensuing power play. Brassard had shoulder surgery in the summer of 2017, so it is completely plausible that he suffered another injury on that hit. But he did finish out Monday's game and, again, he practiced without limitation the following day.
Conspiracy theories aside, the Penguins finally got their first look at Blueger, regarded as their third-line center of the future.
THE OTHER SIDE
Despite having not played since Jan. 19, the Lightning showed very little rust early. They out-shot the Penguins 16-5. They held a whopping 82-18 Corsi For percentage advantage at 5-on-5, and they even successfully killed off an extended 5-on-3 power play — all in the first period. And for all their efforts, they still found themselves down 3-0.
That deficit simply proved too much to overcome.
"It was a weird game in terms of when you come off a break like that and have a first period where you did a lot of good things, but the score didn't indicate that. What are you going to do? We had some looks," Stamkos said. "We had some offensive zone time for sure in the first. It would have been nice to get one. It's not the start that we wanted. We knew we would have to try to keep it pretty simple early on, and they made some plays and we turned some pucks over and just to the wrong people, and they capitalized."
Vasilevskiy gave up four goals on 22 shots but received little help from his defense. It was just the Lightning's second loss in 14 games this season against Metropolitan Division opponents. Their other came Jan. 13 against the Islanders, who they will face Friday night at Nassau Coliseum. The Lightning have yet to lose back-to-back games this season and aren't planning on starting now.
"The biggest thing we talked about after the game," McDonagh said, "is not letting this snowball here, realize this is our one game now back from break and there's no more excuses with that, and we've got a really tough test of a team that put a good thumping to us last time."
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins will practice Thursday at noon in Cranberry and will host the Senators the following night at 7:08 p.m. in the first of back-to-back games this weekend. The Penguins will play in Toronto on Saturday night.
THE COVERAGE
Visit our Penguins team page for everything.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Penguins vs. Lightning, PPG Paints Arena, Jan. 30, 2019 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS
