Anytime you put grown men on skates on a confined 200-by-85 foot sheet of ice with sticks and pucks traveling 100 mph, there is an inherent risk of injury. Yes, even in a practice setting.
The Penguins are well aware of that. In a late February practice, they lost Matt Murray and Zach Aston-Reese for a month with a concussion and upper-body injury, respectively.
On Thursday afternoon, less than 24 hours after their 5-0 win over the Flyers gave them a commanding 3-1 series lead, the Penguins took to the ice at the Lemieux Sports Complex.
The Penguins skated away unscathed, but not without suffering a major scare when Murray sustained what appeared to be an injury. The practice was halted and the trainer was called out to look at the goalie, who was briefly hunched over.
Well, the Penguins can take a sigh of relief. Apparently, he was OK.
"Yeah, I'm good," Murray told reporters afterward.
With his 26-save shutout performance in Game 4, Murray became the fastest goalie to 25 playoffs wins.
"It’s a cool stat, a cool number, but that’s a Pittsburgh Penguins record," he said. "Not a personal record."
• Only Patric Hornqvist, who missed his first game Wednesday night with an upper body injury, did not practice and will not play in Game 5, according to Mike Sullivan. He was the only player not to practice but he did skate on his own prior to his teammates taking the ice.
• The Penguins practiced with the same line combinations and defense pairs:
Guentzel-Crosby-Simon
Hagelin-Malkin-Kessel
Sheary-Brassard-Rust
Aston-Reese-Sheahan-Kuhnhackl
Dumoulin-Letang
Maatta-Schultz
Oleksiak-Ruhwedel
• Flyers GM Ron Hextall confirmed that Sean Couturier, who missed Game 4 with a lower body injury, skated Wednesday and Thursday, will travel to Pittsburgh and will be a game-time decision. Couturier was named a Selke Trophy finalist. He spoke to the media on Thursday:
Coots: https://t.co/WxBte6QKxQ
— Sam Carchidi (@BroadStBull) April 19, 2018
• According to the Philadelphia Inquirer's Sam Carchidi, Robert Hagg will likely replace Travis Sanheim on defense. "Hopefully I can bring something to the team, some energy," Hagg said. "I can’t wait to go in and show what I can bring to the team – and if it’s something good, I guess people will talk about it.”
• According to the Camden Courier Post's Dave Isaac, the Flyers made additional changes to their lines in practice, placing Valtteri Filppula on the top line:
Giroux-Filppula-Voracek
Lehtera-Read-Simmonds (Weise)
Lindblom-Patrick-Konecny
Raffl-Leier-Weal (Laughton)
QUOTABLE
"He asked me what took so long." -- Sidney Crosby, on what Mario Lemieux told him about surpassing his team playoff points record.
BY THE NUMBER
9/2: Odds of Vegas Golden Knights winning the Stanley Cup, best among the teams remaining in the playoff field, according to Bovada. The Penguins are at 8/1 the fifth-best odds.