Penguins’ Murray, the Eye in the Carolina Hurricane: Pens Shutout Canes 3 – 0

In March of 1971 the Canadian Band Ocean sang;
“Put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the water
Put your hand in the hand of the man that calmed the sea.”

There is a reason my wife, Michele, once gave me a t-shirt that reads “I speak in song lyrics, movie quotes, and sarcasm” she has to put up with me answering her like this all the time – quoting things. I lucky to have a wife who puts up with my idiosyncrasies. It has to get a bit much when it is all the time.

Last night, our Pittsburgh Penguins put their hand(s) in the hand(s) of Goalie Matt Murray, who looked like the Murray of Stanley Cup lore, looking like he was sitting back in the eye of the Carolina storm, calmly rejecting all 39 Shots On Goal (SOG) that the Hurricanes blew his way. At one point this season, much ado was made about how dreadful Penguin Goaltending was. Many of our Penguin faithful weren’t quite that faithful in those beleaguered, over worked back stops. However, as the extremely disturbing trend of the porous Penguin protector party (team defense) continues their extremely disturbing trend of giving up shot after shot to opponents, Penguin Goalies have become Bounty Paper Towels, absorbing the flood of opponent shots.

Very recently, I decided to look at how the Penguins’ team Defense has fared over the last 5 years. They were at a 5 year low in Shots Against (SA), 33.3. Well this morning I looked a little farther back in time, 15 years to be exact. I looked all the way to the first year after the season long strike and do you know what I found? Yep – boys and girls, this is the worst team defense in those 15 years. Only the first year back 2005-2006, Sidney Crosby’s first year as a Penguin came close with 33.2 SA. Let’s be thankful for Matt Murray and Casey DeSmith.

Last night’s shutout (SO) was the 8th in Murray’s nascent career, 2nd this season, putting him alone in 4th place, on the Penguins’ all time SO list. When most Goalies get SOs, it is usually a team effort, with their defenders limiting opponents to less than 30 SOG, often closer to (or less than) 20. Unfortunately for Murray and DeSmith, the Penguins aren’t really blessed with NHL caliber defense (despite the love affair some fans have with certain Defensemen on this team). Of the 4 SOs the team has registered this year, Penguins goalies have had to hold the line like the 101st Airborne at Bastogne and survive 38 SOG in Toronto (Murray), 29 SOG in Vancouver (DeSmith), 39 SOG against Arizona (DeSmith), and another 39 SOG in Carolina (Murray). Murray and DeSmith have had to earn their SOs this season.

The Penguins resurgence over these last 2 weeks certainly is a tribute to Goaltending; Murray’s Save Percentage (sv%) is 0.964% while partner in crime DeSmith has turned in a 0.927% sv%, let’s not over-look the heroics of the Guentzel – Crosby – Rust line. Crosby led the way last night with 3 points (all assists) to climb up into a 3 way tie with his line mates for the month of December with 13 points in 12 games. Crosby looked like a man possessed out on the ice, reinvigorated by the hot hands of Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust. If I had to pick a play from last night’s game to exemplify his play and place it among the highlight reel, I would have to vote for a play on which no goals came but was a paragon of hard work in conjunction with both physical skill and hockey sense. A rebound came of the Canes‘ Goalie Curtis McElhinney and bounced towards former Penguin Jordan Staal. With lightning quick physical and mental reflexes, Crosby recognized an opportunity in the split second of the puck’s flight path, lifted Staal’s stick to open up the scoring chance, and then resettled his stick for the rebound opportunity and got it. Fortunately, for the Canes, McElhinney was on his game too. Unfortunately for the Canes, McElhinney wasn’t Murray. As good as he was, he still was human and Kris Letang found a chink in his armor to open the scoring and Guentzel continued his hot hand to pad the lead with 2 insurance goals.

I hate to be the one harping on some negatives, but aside from the 240 shots the Penguins’ Defense has now given up during this 6 game upswing (still 40 SOG per game), the team has once again been reduced to a 1 line offense. The secondary scoring that started to emerge at the beginning of December seems to have evaporated. In the 1st 2 weeks of the month, the only forwards without a goal were Tanner Pearson, Matt Cullen, and Dominik Simon and Cullen and Simon had only played 2 games in that 7 game stretch. In the 6 games since, 9 of the 18 goals or half of them have come from Guentzel – Crosby – Rust.

Phil Krundel, Rick Buker, I wish I had your optimism and even though I am enjoying this current run and the play of Goalies Murray and DeSmith and the fireworks of Guentzel – Crosby – Rust, I am not yet sold. I do believe there is a good chance that the team will make the playoffs, but that may be all. Santa did bring all 6 points for our Penguins like I asked, and he has continued to feed Rust’s mojo and the Goalies’ stellar displays, but for me to join you guys, I need to see the team get Evgeni Malkin a solid line mate. A lot of people moan about how many times he gives up the puck, but since Mike Sullivan has begun to regularly exchange his line mates with a parade of pylons (interspersed with Phil Kessel at times to make it look good), all I really see is a star trying to make something out of nothing. What I saw yesterday was turnovers due to no one to which to pass the puck. When players were able to keep up physically with him, they stumbled and bumbled like Keystone Kops in the offensive zone, running into each other, rather than moving about to present targets to pass to each other, or crash the net to get rebounds should someone, somehow, get a shot off.

For me to get on board with you guys, I need to see the Defense get these shot totals back to at least NHL averages. I have read many people patting Letang, Brian Dumoulin, Olli Määttä, Jack Johnson, and even Marcus Pettersson on the back lately, but I can’t help but ask Why?, as these guys are turnstiles watching shots fly on net. We may have our favorite Defensemen, but reality tells me, if not for the way DeSmith and Murray have closed the door, these guys and many of the forwards would still be foundering with +/- numbers down around the center of the earth approaching Old Nick territory.

With no more games before Christmas, and the Santa/the Penguins delivering most of what I asked for, I am going to sit back with a nice warm potent potable, maybe even watch a few snowflakes fall if the weatherman is kind to us, and enjoy the current upswing, hoping to see a couple of my other wishes come true to see a true return of Penguin dominance.

Odds and Sods

Former Penguin Jordan Staal left last night’s game early, apparently with an injury and didn’t return. The injury is reported as an upper body injury. Rotoworld is suggesting that it may be a concussion with Staal listed day-to-day. I always liked Staal. I wish you a speedy recovery.

Our Wilkes Barre – Scranton Penguins finished their pre-Christmas schedule on a sour note, losing 4 – 3 in overtime to the Syracuse Crunch. Jean-Sebastien Dea, Anthony Angello, and Garrett Wilson all scored in the losing cause. Ethan Prow continued to impress, picking up another assist. Tristan Jarry must feel like he is still on the big club. He was besieged with 41 SOG. It was the only way Syracuse could squeeze 4 of them behind him. Baby Penguin shooters only harassed the Crunch Goalie with 23 SOG.

Merry Christmas to all the Penguin Poop readers and writers from the Other Rick