DK: These parallel paths need to intersect sooner, not later
There were two total occasions on which the crowd of 17,527 could cheer on this Friday night at PPG Paints Arena, and both were terribly telling when taken together:
8:04 p.m.: Sergei Murashov steps onto the ice to replace Arturs Silovs after the former coughs up four goals on 10 shots through a period and change:
JEANINE LEECH / GETTY
8:12 p.m. Murashov makes a save and covers the rebound:
JEANINE LEECH / GETTY
No, seriously, the citizens let the civic sarcasm echo off the walls for that one.
Look, the outcome of the Penguins' 5-0 flattening by the Wild, outlier or not, couldn't have been any uglier. Because, as Dan Muse would word it within as foul a mood as I can recall having seen him, "It was everybody. Everybody's included in a loss like that. It's across the board. Myself included."
After a pause and a shake of the head, he'd add, "There was a lot of bad tonight. It wasn't just one thing or one person, by any means."
He's right. I won't challenge that. I'd have an easier time, in fact, in sharing that Erik Karlsson was exceptional as ever, Blake Lizotte skated as hard as ever, Sam Poulin acquitted himself fairly well upon his latest promotion from the AHL, and all the rest, from Sidney Crosby on down ... uh, yeah.
"Obviously, it wasn't our best effort right from the start," Karlsson would say of Minnesota scoring three times in the first period, then again 1:09 into the second to prompt Muse's hook on Silovs. "We ended up on the wrong foot early in the first, and we couldn't find a way to get ourselves out of it. I think everybody in here understands that tonight wasn't good enough to have a chance to win."
Which is to say nothing, specifically, of the defense pairing of Kris Letang and Ryan Shea being on the rink for all five Minnesota goals.
"I gotta be better," Shea would say. "It's pretty frustrating. I'm just lucky I didn't break every stick I have after a game like that."
No doubt. And there'd be no excuses, either, even with the team having just spent a week in Sweden, then another four days here without a game.
Muse sure didn't want any part of it: "I’m not looking at that. We had practices. We weren’t ready. I’m not looking at that as an excuse at all for a second."
OK, so that is what it is. All of it. There's another game here Saturday night against the Kraken and, as Muse would stress after this one, "We’re very fortunate to have that."
But might there be a larger lesson at hand, between this blah effort and the broader 2-4-2 bummer of a bump on the schedule?
Allow me, please, to lay this out ...
The way this 2025-26 NHL season had been scripted by the hockey world to play out in Pittsburgh, including by plenty right here, Kyle Dubas was supposed to keep accumulating Anthony Beauvillier-style assets, sending them to other teams for Beauvillier-level returns and, in harmony, buying time for the prospects he's already acquired to mature. And if the kids could out-perform those twenty-somethings along the way, well, that'd be OK, too.
Then came Ben Kindel and Harrison Brunicke as teenagers, Justin Brazeau and Parker Wotherspoon as twenty-somethings, great goaltending in general, an even greater power play, and all else that accompanies a still-strong 10-6-4 start.
So what now?
I can't know. No one can. I'm not sure Dubas can.
But I'm beginning to sense that it might be time to remember Plan A, even while plowing forward with the ongoing semi-Plan B of pushing toward the Stanley Cup playoffs, as this locker room's made clear is its own primary goal. And what I mean by that Plan A might as well intersect with the other parallel path.
Take Tommy Novak. Please.
I'm aware of why management and the coaching staff value him: Lots of quality in tight quarters. Little plays. But man, I'm sorry, that doesn't supersede all the nothing results. Twenty games has to net more than two goals and five assists from anyone within the top three lines, and it's not like he's spewing intangibles the way Lizotte does all over the ice.
All right, so, anyone in Wilkes-Barre ready?
I can't know all that I'd want about Tristan Broz in the moment, since I'm on this side of the commonwealth, but I'm confident saying I'd take the No. 1 center in Wilkes-Barre, that team's leading goal-scorer with eight, and a relentless, passionate worker. Precisely the kind of character a collective can use in a circumstance like this stinking egg laid here tonight. Plus, he's 23, five years younger than Novak.
I'd rather prioritize the earned advancement of those young players over the building up of the twenty-something assets, particularly if it comes with the bonus of playoffs.
Following me now?
OK, cool, because that brings me full circle to the goaltending.
I'm equally aware why management and the coaching staff value Silovs. He entered this game with a .917 save percentage -- that'd drop 10 points, by the way -- partly because he's been solid in stopping the first shots of a sequence, partly because he's occasionally put it all together for an entire regulation period, as he did eight days ago in Stockholm.
But ... man, I just don't see the ceiling. Not when his rebound control ranges from bad to worse. Not when he's casually undressed in one-on-one settings, even beyond the shootout. Not when he can't handle the puck to the modest extent he could've cut off Minnesota's routine early dump -- he barely budged from the blue to keep it from passing through the trapezoid -- and prevented the Wild's icebreaking goal:
Tristan Jarry cuts that off in his sleep.
That's not acceptable from an NHL goaltender. Meaning that first part, not the part where Letang inexplicably stuffs himself into the same corner as Shea.
Maybe Silovs can fix those two areas. Maybe not.
But there isn't anyone anywhere who sees his potential as approximating that of Murashov, who at 21 years old and barely more than a year in North America already, in addition to stopping 10 of 11 shots tonight, has achieved this:
Cumulative record across all three levels: 35-13-1.
He's the future, my friends. And if he happens to be one of those youngsters who supplants one of those twenty-somethings, then, just as with Kindel and Brunicke, he's the priority. He'd be my choice to stay, teaming up with Tristan Jarry, ample work for them both in the NHL's compacted schedule this winter. He'd be riding both of those parallel paths.
As for Silovs, there are no fewer than a half-dozen NHL teams currently desperate and/or dying for goaltending that might be willing to buy high for the AHL's reigning playoff MVP.
Whichever the case, for as long as Jarry's out and Murashov's up, my goodness, play him.
Like, play him Saturday. Give him a shot to shine.
Another big crowd's expected, and I'll bet they'll love him all the more. Especially after he had this to say amid an otherwise silent room after this loss:
“First of all, I would like to say thank you to all the fans who stayed for the third period and stayed to the end, and everyone who stays with his or her spirit with the Penguins," he'd say to whatever he might've heard that first question to be. "Sometimes, they celebrate big wins. But sometimes, it’s a game like this. We have to stay honest. It’s the NHL, and one thing I learned pretty quickly is you don’t have much time to think about what’s wrong. You just have to reset and be ready for the next night.”
Wow.
We're worried about maturity, right?
We're forgetting that Matt Murray won a Stanley Cup in this city at 22, right?
The next applause this young man hears will be 100% sarcasm-free.
• Saturday brings Light-Up Night, of course, the one day of the year we Pittsburghers celebrate our Downtown, the one-of-a-kind Golden Triangle that's the heart and soul of our entire region. If you're among the 100,000-plus anticipated, by all means, stop and see us at 224 Fifth Avenue. I'll be at the HQ/shop myself until late afternoon.
• Thanks for reading my hockey coverage. There's a lot more of it to come, but first I'll be flying to Chicago with Chris Halicke for the Steelers' Sunday game against the Bears. José Negron and Eric Bowser will be here Saturday night for more Murashov.
THE ASYLUM
DK: These parallel paths need to intersect sooner, not later
There were two total occasions on which the crowd of 17,527 could cheer on this Friday night at PPG Paints Arena, and both were terribly telling when taken together:
8:04 p.m.: Sergei Murashov steps onto the ice to replace Arturs Silovs after the former coughs up four goals on 10 shots through a period and change:
JEANINE LEECH / GETTY
8:12 p.m. Murashov makes a save and covers the rebound:
JEANINE LEECH / GETTY
No, seriously, the citizens let the civic sarcasm echo off the walls for that one.
Look, the outcome of the Penguins' 5-0 flattening by the Wild, outlier or not, couldn't have been any uglier. Because, as Dan Muse would word it within as foul a mood as I can recall having seen him, "It was everybody. Everybody's included in a loss like that. It's across the board. Myself included."
After a pause and a shake of the head, he'd add, "There was a lot of bad tonight. It wasn't just one thing or one person, by any means."
He's right. I won't challenge that. I'd have an easier time, in fact, in sharing that Erik Karlsson was exceptional as ever, Blake Lizotte skated as hard as ever, Sam Poulin acquitted himself fairly well upon his latest promotion from the AHL, and all the rest, from Sidney Crosby on down ... uh, yeah.
"Obviously, it wasn't our best effort right from the start," Karlsson would say of Minnesota scoring three times in the first period, then again 1:09 into the second to prompt Muse's hook on Silovs. "We ended up on the wrong foot early in the first, and we couldn't find a way to get ourselves out of it. I think everybody in here understands that tonight wasn't good enough to have a chance to win."
Which is to say nothing, specifically, of the defense pairing of Kris Letang and Ryan Shea being on the rink for all five Minnesota goals.
"I gotta be better," Shea would say. "It's pretty frustrating. I'm just lucky I didn't break every stick I have after a game like that."
No doubt. And there'd be no excuses, either, even with the team having just spent a week in Sweden, then another four days here without a game.
Muse sure didn't want any part of it: "I’m not looking at that. We had practices. We weren’t ready. I’m not looking at that as an excuse at all for a second."
OK, so that is what it is. All of it. There's another game here Saturday night against the Kraken and, as Muse would stress after this one, "We’re very fortunate to have that."
But might there be a larger lesson at hand, between this blah effort and the broader 2-4-2 bummer of a bump on the schedule?
Allow me, please, to lay this out ...
The way this 2025-26 NHL season had been scripted by the hockey world to play out in Pittsburgh, including by plenty right here, Kyle Dubas was supposed to keep accumulating Anthony Beauvillier-style assets, sending them to other teams for Beauvillier-level returns and, in harmony, buying time for the prospects he's already acquired to mature. And if the kids could out-perform those twenty-somethings along the way, well, that'd be OK, too.
Then came Ben Kindel and Harrison Brunicke as teenagers, Justin Brazeau and Parker Wotherspoon as twenty-somethings, great goaltending in general, an even greater power play, and all else that accompanies a still-strong 10-6-4 start.
So what now?
I can't know. No one can. I'm not sure Dubas can.
But I'm beginning to sense that it might be time to remember Plan A, even while plowing forward with the ongoing semi-Plan B of pushing toward the Stanley Cup playoffs, as this locker room's made clear is its own primary goal. And what I mean by that Plan A might as well intersect with the other parallel path.
Take Tommy Novak. Please.
I'm aware of why management and the coaching staff value him: Lots of quality in tight quarters. Little plays. But man, I'm sorry, that doesn't supersede all the nothing results. Twenty games has to net more than two goals and five assists from anyone within the top three lines, and it's not like he's spewing intangibles the way Lizotte does all over the ice.
All right, so, anyone in Wilkes-Barre ready?
I can't know all that I'd want about Tristan Broz in the moment, since I'm on this side of the commonwealth, but I'm confident saying I'd take the No. 1 center in Wilkes-Barre, that team's leading goal-scorer with eight, and a relentless, passionate worker. Precisely the kind of character a collective can use in a circumstance like this stinking egg laid here tonight. Plus, he's 23, five years younger than Novak.
I'd rather prioritize the earned advancement of those young players over the building up of the twenty-something assets, particularly if it comes with the bonus of playoffs.
Following me now?
OK, cool, because that brings me full circle to the goaltending.
I'm equally aware why management and the coaching staff value Silovs. He entered this game with a .917 save percentage -- that'd drop 10 points, by the way -- partly because he's been solid in stopping the first shots of a sequence, partly because he's occasionally put it all together for an entire regulation period, as he did eight days ago in Stockholm.
But ... man, I just don't see the ceiling. Not when his rebound control ranges from bad to worse. Not when he's casually undressed in one-on-one settings, even beyond the shootout. Not when he can't handle the puck to the modest extent he could've cut off Minnesota's routine early dump -- he barely budged from the blue to keep it from passing through the trapezoid -- and prevented the Wild's icebreaking goal:
Tristan Jarry cuts that off in his sleep.
That's not acceptable from an NHL goaltender. Meaning that first part, not the part where Letang inexplicably stuffs himself into the same corner as Shea.
Maybe Silovs can fix those two areas. Maybe not.
But there isn't anyone anywhere who sees his potential as approximating that of Murashov, who at 21 years old and barely more than a year in North America already, in addition to stopping 10 of 11 shots tonight, has achieved this:
• ECHL: 26 games, 2.40 GAA, .922 SV%
• AHL: 23 games, 2.36 GAA, .918 SV%
• NHL: 3 games, 1.52 GAA, .932 SV%
Cumulative record across all three levels: 35-13-1.
He's the future, my friends. And if he happens to be one of those youngsters who supplants one of those twenty-somethings, then, just as with Kindel and Brunicke, he's the priority. He'd be my choice to stay, teaming up with Tristan Jarry, ample work for them both in the NHL's compacted schedule this winter. He'd be riding both of those parallel paths.
As for Silovs, there are no fewer than a half-dozen NHL teams currently desperate and/or dying for goaltending that might be willing to buy high for the AHL's reigning playoff MVP.
Whichever the case, for as long as Jarry's out and Murashov's up, my goodness, play him.
Like, play him Saturday. Give him a shot to shine.
Another big crowd's expected, and I'll bet they'll love him all the more. Especially after he had this to say amid an otherwise silent room after this loss:
“First of all, I would like to say thank you to all the fans who stayed for the third period and stayed to the end, and everyone who stays with his or her spirit with the Penguins," he'd say to whatever he might've heard that first question to be. "Sometimes, they celebrate big wins. But sometimes, it’s a game like this. We have to stay honest. It’s the NHL, and one thing I learned pretty quickly is you don’t have much time to think about what’s wrong. You just have to reset and be ready for the next night.”
Wow.
We're worried about maturity, right?
We're forgetting that Matt Murray won a Stanley Cup in this city at 22, right?
The next applause this young man hears will be 100% sarcasm-free.
• Saturday brings Light-Up Night, of course, the one day of the year we Pittsburghers celebrate our Downtown, the one-of-a-kind Golden Triangle that's the heart and soul of our entire region. If you're among the 100,000-plus anticipated, by all means, stop and see us at 224 Fifth Avenue. I'll be at the HQ/shop myself until late afternoon.
• Thanks for reading my hockey coverage. There's a lot more of it to come, but first I'll be flying to Chicago with Chris Halicke for the Steelers' Sunday game against the Bears. José Negron and Eric Bowser will be here Saturday night for more Murashov.
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