Kovacevic: Penguins still waiting on Murray's best

WASHINGTON -- Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin collectively did a big dumb thing, and it's put the Penguins on the precipice of elimination from these Stanley Cup playoffs.

I mean really big, really dumb.

Yeah, I know, they'd go on to lose to the Capitals by a 6-3 count in Game 5 on this Saturday night at Capital One Arena, and I know the far more costly goal, Jakub Vrana's casual deposit with 4:38 left, came a lot later than the big dumb thing. But it gets no bigger and no dumber than carrying a one-goal lead into the third period, facing the other team's top line in the opening minute and still, somehow conceding a clean breakaway to the guy with the slickest hands.

Kind of like this:

I mean, wow.

A full shift had just elapsed, and both teams' forwards and the Penguins' defensemen had just changed on the fly. Only the Capitals' defense pair of Matt Niskanen and Dmitry Orlov were still stuck on the ice. When the other team has clear possession in such a stance, Mike Sullivan's system requires his players to fall into a 1-2-2 formation.

It doesn't require them to lose their brains.

Carl Haglelin's the 1 in the 1-2-2. He does his job, forcing Niskanen to pick a side for the outlet. Patric Hornqvist's one of the 2s in the 1-2-2. He does his job, clogging his section of the neutral zone. And that was absolutely it in that regard.

Malkin clearly senses Evgeny Kuznetsov making a monster burst from the Washington end — he started by swinging behind Niskanen — and he leans that way as if he's interested in sticking by him. Until he doesn't. His body language is cringeworthy. That's not a championship effort. That's not a November-night-in-Minnesota effort.

This is something Malkin probably would have had a tough time explaining had he made himself available to media afterward, which he didn't.

It gets bigger and dumber.

Letang has been matched up with Ovechkin throughout this round and, for the most part, he's been commendable. In Game 4, Ovechkin went without a shot. In this one, he had three. But there's such a thing as taking an individual matchup too literally, and that's what Letang did.

With Ovechkin lingering at the right edge of the Pittsburgh blue line in a stretch-pass formation — standing upright, actually, and resembling football's infamous hideout play along a sideline — Letang decided he'd cross over behind his partner, Brian Dumoulin, to stay with Ovechkin:

One problem: Dumoulin had no idea this was happening, so he didn't budge. And a path the width of the Beltway was formed for Kuznetsov to finish.

Letang and Dumoulin did make themselves available to media afterward, and they mostly dismissed it as miscommunication, which they evidently were trying to address right after it happened:

"Dumo was backing up, and I thought Ovi was stretching behind him," Letang said. "I went to him to make sure he didn't get the puck, and it opened up the middle."

"Yeah, I think we were both inbetween," Dumoulin said, meaning between reads, "and they had all that speed, and you can't give them that kind of time and space. It's just a miscommunication. I think that's something we've got to sort out."

They do, but that's pretty much it.

Well, other than one other thing that's kind of big: They could use a big save.

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It's not supposed to end like this.

This truly exceptional collection of talent, the first in two decades to claim consecutive Cups, was always supposed to be undone by fatigue. Or by injury. Or maybe by some younger, faster team ready to stake their own claim.

None of that's happened. None of it.

Rather, it's been this:

Wait, don't flip out. Hear me out.

I'm not singularly blaming Murray. That would be illogical bordering on insane. In this game alone, he could be reasonably excused for all four Washington goals: John Carlson's was a center-point blast through traffic. Brett Connolly's bounced up awkwardly off the ice, Kuznetsov's was the equivalent of a penalty shot.

And here, this was Vrana's winner:

That's more lousy defense by Letang, obviously. It was a two-on-two, and Riley Sheahan, covering for Dumoulin, did OK to keep Ovechkin to the outside. All Letang needs to do is stay with Vrana.

His explanation for why he didn't ... oh, listen for yourself:

Huh? He wanted to keep Ovechkin "from going to the middle?"

But he wasn't in position to do that, either!

Anyway ... that's a breakdown. Not on Dumoulin's part, since, again, Sheahan had his back, but also since he absolutely had to take the open lane for that golden one-on-one chance with Holtby and, as Dumoulin would say, "If I score there, everything's different." The breakdown comes at the very end, and it's on Letang.

OK, so make the big save.

Make any big save.

"It's a tough play," Murray would say. "Ovechkin's coming with speed, and he's on his forehand there, so ... I've got to make a better read there, but I've also got to be patient with his shot. He holds the puck, makes a nice play, so ... nice play by him."

Nice play by Ovechkin, but one made all the easier by Murray following him to an angle so severe that not even our generation's greatest goal-scorer could have hurt him.

It runs counter to everything about the hockey culture to criticize the goaltender, but that obviously doesn't stop me from stating this bluntly: The primary reason the Capitals have taken command of this series is that Holtby has outperformed Murray in every single game.

The Penguins, too, have had golden chances. Holtby's made big saves.

The Penguins, too, have deflected shots. Holtby's stopped more than his share of those.

The Penguins, too, have faced wide-open nets on slick passing plays. Holtby's generated highlights.

Show me a series in which one goaltender outperforms the other in every single game, and I'll show that goaltender the happy side of the handshake line. That goaltender has been Holtby, right from the first puck drop. And in this one, he stopped 36 of the Penguins' series-high 39 shots, including several of exquisite quality and, you bet, including Dumoulin sprinting right down the slot there at the end:

"Huge save," Barry Trotz would gush in a way Sullivan wasn't able to. "We parted the seas there a little bit for their chance, and Holtz came up huge."

Of Holtby's showing in the second period, in which the Penguins ran up an 18-5 edge in shots, Trotz re-gushed, "He was fantastic. Just fantastic. To me, the backbone of the team is the goaltender. And when you don't have your best stuff, like we didn't in the second, he was ... he was just huge for us."

Yep.

Asked about all those saves in the second, Holtby himself answered, "It's the playoffs."

Double-yep.

Sullivan said of that second period, "It might be the best period we've played in a long time."

“We generated some good chances, and he made some saves,” Sidney Crosby said of Holtby. “We couldn't get our stick on a few. We had him beat on a couple, and they didn't go in. We keep getting those, they'll go in."

Give Holtby serious credit. His reputation for crumbling against the Penguins had reached such proportions that his own head coach benched him in favor of Philipp Grubauer for the final regular-season meeting in Pittsburgh just so, as Trotz acknowledged that night, "Philipp can get a game in this building."

If the message wasn't clear then, it sure was when Grubauer started the first two games of these playoffs. But ever since Holtby took over in Game 3 of that Columbus series, he's been nothing shy of brilliant, with a 2.16 goals-against average and .924 save percentage.

That's playoff goaltending. That's championship goaltending.

Go through each individual goal Murray's allowed, and most will come with an acceptable asterisk. There's always someone else in the frame of each video, always something else that could have been done.

But, you know, make the save.

Get this: The Penguins, famous for all that offense, have also allowed the fewest shots per game of any of the 16 teams that entered these playoffs at 26.3. And there isn't another team that's close, with the Bruins' 29.6 being next-lowest. To boot, the Penguins have scored 3.73 goals per game, second only to the Jets' 3.80, so their skaters have gotten it done at both ends.

At the same time, of the 16 goaltenders to have played at least four games, Murray's .905 save percentage ranks 10th. Of the eight goaltenders to have played at least nine games — just to include those reaching the second round — his save percentage ranks sixth.

By definition, that's below-average goaltending and, thus, it's unlike any other component of the Penguins' overall game.

Oh, and the guy with the No. 1 save percentage?

Yeah, I'll go there: It's Marc-Andre Fleury at an astronomical .946.

I never appreciated — nor really understood — the Pittsburgh fan base's impassioned emotions in incessantly measuring Murray vs. Fleury. Not when they were teammates, certainly not now that they're in opposite conferences. So please, keep the following in that context: Fleury stops Kuznetsov on that breakaway.

You know it. I know it. I'm betting all involved know it.

The Sharks' Tomas Hertl knows it, as he found out Friday night in Vegas:

I'll go further, while out on this limb, even if this is a reprise of stuff I wrote last spring: If Fleury hadn't been the starter in the first two rounds against the Blue Jackets and Capitals, with his ability to steal games as he did, neither Murray nor the Penguins get the chance to finish it off.

In last year's series with Washington, Fleury was the best player even though the Capitals were the better team.

In this year's, Holtby is the best player even though the Penguins are the better team.

That's the equation that's got to flip. There's no longer anywhere to hide from it, not other breakdowns, not even the hockey culture: Murray can't be a passenger in this series any longer. He's got to be a difference-maker.

He's got to be the Penguins' best player in Game 6 for there to be a Game 7.

And from there, he's got to be their best player in Game 7.

It's not like he isn't capable. He's done it before. He just hasn't done it in these playoffs.

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I asked Murray if anything about his mindset changes within the elimination pressure he and the Penguins will now face Monday, and his response tied the record for shortest in human history:

Good for him. Because that's the right response.

Let's see how the Capitals like hearing it.

MATT SUNDAY GALLERY