Matt Murray skates out of his crease after the overtime goal Sunday night. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS

Penguins

Kovacevic: Not one but two young goaltenders

By Dejan Kovacevic

Jan 8, 2018 • 2:54 am

9.6K

Matt Murray heard the cheers. You'd better believe he heard them.

Oh, maybe not the ones before faceoff when Tristan Jarry was introduced as the Penguins' starting goaltender -- the PPG Paints Arena crowd of 18,553 roaring in the spirit of some arriving hero's welcome -- but he definitely heard the ones after his cool, calculated and shard-sharp save on Brad Marchand's penalty shot.

It came with 1:01 left in regulation ...

... and man, was that scene something special, even on this seriously fun Sunday night in which Evgeni Malkin's tap-in would top off a 6-5 overtime special over the Bruins.

Because the reaction to that save would pretty much blow the roof off the place.

"Yeah, oh ... it means a lot. A lot," Murray was recalling for me afterward at his stall. He hadn't smiled all through his formal session with cameras and microphones. This subject brought a smile. "It's a fun situation to be in. To have that kind of impact on the game. A minute left. Big moment. It feels good to contribute like that for the team, especially in a game like that where we showed a ton of character, came back like we did."

He paused a second.

"Yeah, that was really nice. For sure."

He's an interesting dude. Always has been. Outwardly, he doesn't exactly exude emotion. But inwardly, and especially in responding when something goes wrong, that flame goes inferno.

Remember how he always followed up on a playoff loss?

Or how he'd always eventually rise above whichever Martin Jones-type might have been outperforming him in the moment?

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Well, the challenge this winter has been different. He's struggled. The 2.93 goals-against average and .903 save percentage illustrate that to an extent, but the rest is about the lack of early and/or timely saves. He hasn't picked up his team when it's been needed. And now, on this very night, for the first time this season when healthy and available, he was benched in favor of Jarry, who was fresh off a shutout in Brooklyn and had been better for a couple weeks.

But if all this is presented in fair context, even if Murray's won two Stanley Cups since he's been old enough to drink, he's also never been a formal No. 1 for a full season until now. And as Mike Sullivan powerfully reminded when I asked about Murray's rescue in relief on this night, the kid's still only 23 years old. Just a year and a month older than Jarry.

"He's so young ... and I think sometimes we forget how young he is," Sullivan said of Murray. "He's had some ups and downs in this first part of the season, but we have not lost faith in him. You're going to have growing pains. That's part of the process."

The whole response is worth hearing:

Of the penalty shot, Sullivan would add, "It's a game-changer. A game-changing save. I hope Matt gets confidence from it. Because he should."

To keep perspective, Murray's save was one of only a half-dozen he had to make over his 25:35 after Jarry was benched following five goals on 19 shots. Coincidence or not, the Penguins clamped down big-time after the change.

Still, that paints the penalty shot, at least from this perspective, as all the more impressive.

To go from sitting on a folding chair in the runway to stopping NHL shooters, without the benefit of a single warmup shot -- thanks, Al Arbour! -- is one thing. To suddenly face an opponent so offensively torrid that it hadn't trailed in any of its previous nine games is another. But to see Marchand, owner of 37, 39 and now 17 goals over his past three seasons, standing at center ice after a half-hour of needing binoculars to watch his teammates dominate at the far end ...

"Yeah," Murray would reply when I brought that up. "That guy's pretty good."

Marchand's also pretty fast, and he decided to put that to use. Skating all the way back to the Boston crease -- nearly bumping Tuukka Rask -- he really revved up the motor ...

... so once he finally made it across the Pittsburgh blue line, Murray did as all goaltenders are taught against a breakaway coming with full speed: Match that speed by taking extra steps out of the crease, then gliding back with it. Take away the shooter's advantage.

That achieved, Murray then made sure, even after Marchand had made a decent if unsteady move to the backhand to try for the five-hole -- "I thought he had me," Murray would confess -- he had the last-gasp instinct to close off his right leg pad and keep the puck out:

Here's Murray's complete explanation:

Count on many, many more such saves to come. From Murray and the other kid.

• Jarry wasn't all bad. And the call by Sullivan to start him was the right one. The Bruins got a couple of bounces, and Jarry had to have been briefly rattled by David Pastrnak's short-side roofer, leading into David Backes' weird flick from the boards for the fifth goal that chased him. Big deal.

• Scratching Ian Cole in favor of Matt Hunwick could not possibly be easy to justify.

• It is a joy to watch Patrice Bergeron kill penalties, particularly when he's given a highly specific assignment. That said, his primary assignment on this night was to pressure the right point where Kris Letang and Malkin commonly play catch, and those two did that almost at will right through Bergeron. Talent-on-talent crime!

• The five free days the Penguins now have couldn't be better timed. Not because they're beaten down but because maybe, just maybe, they're finally believing that they aren't.

The Jaguars' Leonard Fournette, earlier this season at Heinz Field. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS

• Sorry, I can't take that Jacksonville team seriously.

That won't be the cool thing to say this week, but the Steelers themselves are the ones who need to focus on the Jaguars, not the rest of us. And the rest of us watched that three-hour quagmire Sunday and, at least speaking for myself, I couldn't stop cringing. Blake Bortles isn't an NFL quarterback. Leonard Fournette is a fine back but hardly a star. There were no meaningful threats of any kind on offense. And the defense, while dynamic in the secondary, can be beaten by an ordinary NFL offense that's got some semblance of diversity.

If the Steelers lose in this coming round, they will have lost to the Steelers and no one else.

• Man, this league needs more quality quarterbacks. Imagine being a casual football fan, tuning in that Bills-Jaguars game, reasonably expecting to see two contenders go at it ... then watching Bortles and Tyrod Taylor fall all over themselves.

• The Titans have a better shot of winning in Foxborough than the Jaguars have of winning here.

That won't be cool to say, either, but here's one highly specific reason why: Derrick Henry has never run the way he just did in Kansas City, with those 156 yards on 23 carries. Momentum matters in football, but especially with the ground game. And with the Patriots ceding 4.7 yards per carry -- second-worst in the NFL -- that affords Tennessee's coaching staff a real chance to keep Tom Brady off the field, same as the Steelers did in the first half a month ago.

I'm not predicting anything. Just saying the Titans have a better shot at the upset than the Jaguars. Obviously, neither one should win.

• The schedule's going to stir up a lot of fuss ...

... if only because the Patriots get that extra half-day on the Steelers to prep for a potential AFC Championship rematch. Remember, Mike Tomlin himself pressed that button a year ago in the infamous Antonio Brown Facebook Live capture from the locker room.

Well, forget it. That's the perk of being the No. 1 seed. The Patriots and Eagles are exactly that in their respective conferences. To winners go the spoils.

Besides, what are we talking about here, a few bonus hours of rest/recuperation? Or a tiny bit more time for fresh film study?

• The Pirates' voluntary minicamp opens this morning in Bradenton. I did some intensive research for you over the weekend and tabulated their spending in free agency so far this offseason: $0.00.

• The Brewers, based in a market two-thirds the size of Pittsburgh, have invested exactly $20 million so far.

In early November, David Stearns, Milwaukee's general manager, told this to his city's Journal-Sentinel newspaper: "I am confident that our ownership will continue to support us should we see attractive investments."

Opinions are never needed on this subject. It's amazing.

Duquesne guard Mike Lewis II - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS

• It's one thing for Duquesne to have slid through its out-of-conference schedule unscathed, but a 12-4 overall record deserves a special layer of highlighter, especially with a 3-0 start inside the still-legit Atlantic 10. Sure, the strength-of-schedule -- 323rd-ranked out of 351 in the NCAA -- is an issue, but these still feel like more than baby steps.

Keith Dambrot's going to get the bulk of the credit, and given the Dukes' surprising defense and rebounding -- they've got three wins when shooting worse than 40 percent from the field, for crying out loud -- that's absolutely appropriate. He's been all that could have been expected.

Mike Lewis II will get credit, too, for sticking by the program when the sky was falling last spring, and that's also appropriate. He's set the leadership tone.

But give it up, too, for 6-5 freshman guard Eric Williams Jr., a two-time A-10 rookie of the week who leads the conference in rebounding at 9.8 per game. And yeah, to repeat, that's a 6-5 listed guard. With all due respect to 6-11 Darius Lewis' relentless contributions to the school the previous couple years, nothing's held the program back like its inability to compete under the basket. Every shot was one-and-done.

These kids can hit from beyond the arc, too. This could be fun.

WHAT'S BREWING

• More on the hockey game from Matt Gajtka and Chris Bradford right here. And if you missed it, those two did a Facebook Live video with readers before the game -- with an exceptionally annoying surprise guest -- while Gajtka and I did a PNC Postgame video afterward, embedded just below.

• While we did all that, the football guys, Dale Lolley and Christopher Carter, were part of the panel on WPXI-TV's 'Subway Final Word.'

• Tons of Steelers-Jaguars coverage coming this week. But as I'll always emphasize, the quality is the goal every bit as much as the quantity. It begins today with the team resuming practice on the South Side.

• Lance Lysowski is in Bradenton this morning to cover Pirates minicamp for us all week.

• Do you follow us on social media? If not, we're available on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter. We'll make it worth your while, as we've got some initiatives planned on those fronts.

VIDEO

Gajtka and I following the game: