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Murray stops Boston's flurry

January 23, 2017, 10:58 AM ET [172 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Pittsburgh Penguins 5-1 victory over the Boston Bruins was par for the course for the visiting team. The Bruins littered the Penguins net with shot attempts and tilted the ice towards the Penguins, but their shooting percentage woes remained. You can see not many Penguins were on the plus side of 50% yesterday afternoon.


The above chart was created by Micah Blake McCurdy (@ineffectivemath). These charts are free at his Hockey Viz website after 2PM Atlantic time.

You can't fault the Bruins effort. They launched 68 shot attempts at the Penguins net compared to Pittsburgh's 46 at even-strength. In all situations it was 87-48. Most days that would be good enough for a victory, but on this afternoon they ran into a hot goaltender.

Matt Murray had one of his finer outings of the season as he stopped 44 out of the 45 shots he faced. He has rebounded nicely from the Capitals game where he allowed seven goals. He has made three consecutive starts since then he has stopped 90 out of the 93 shots he has faced. This stretch has him back to a respectable .929 save percentage at 5v5. Matt Murray has now made four consecutive starts and is the alpha.

Jake Guentzel made what looked like a dirty hit on Torrey Krug which resulted in the Bruins attempting vigilante justice. The entire sequence that followed the hit was embarrassing and reeks of an era the NHL would be wise to distance itself from. Adam McQuaid jumped Jake Guentzel and attempted to fight him immediately and then Brad Marchand decided to dive bomb in from Guentzel’s blind side to cheap shot him.




A competent league would have handed out penalties to both Bruins players and probably ejected Marchand from the game. The NHL is not a competent league. What makes the entire situation even more ridiculous is the fact Krug lost an edge before Guentzel engaged him, which made the hit look worse than it actually was. The attacks on Guentzel were based on the misperception that he buried Krug.

Evgeni Malkin later crosschecked Brad Marchand in the head/neck region. I didn't like that either.

Conor “top six winger” Sheary hit up the Bruins for two goals and now has 17 goals on the year. He is in the groove right now scoring six goals in his last four games with nine goals in his last ten games. Mike Sullivan can do a lot of different things with his line combos given the players he has at his disposal. One of those things won’t be moving Sheary from Crosby’s wing.

I liken the dynamic that Sidney Crosby has with Conor Sheary to the ones that Tom Brady has with the average wide receivers that New England plugs in. Brady will maximize those players skill sets and if those players are smart and get to the proper spots they will be rewarded. Crosby will make any player better and Sheary has the brains to be in the right spots and enough skill to execute plays.

Patric Hornqvist scored a goal. It was a very Patric Hornqvist kind of goal. He screened the goalie, forced a rebound, and buried the rebound. Pittsburgh has been scoring a lot of goals and Hornqvist hasn’t really been in on a lot of them this year. If he were to start cashing in some of his iXG chips into actual goals the team will be even tougher to beat on a nightly basis. I like Hornqvist’s odds if they keep Guentzel with him and Malkin.

Given the All Star break is right around the corner it might not be a terrible idea to hold Kris Letang and Brian Dumoulin out of action until next Tuesday. Pittsburgh is riding a four game winning streak and should not feel any desperation related to the overall standings.

Sidney Crosby had a nice three point outing. It was kicked off with a beautiful saucer pass that barely kissed the ice before Bryan Rust hammered it into the net.




You can see Crosby starts his sequence from around the goalline. He takes a great angle and then takes off. His body position makes it so the back checker has no chance to make a play.

His goal came from an amazing Phil Kessel backhand pass and the deke had a hint of Mario Lemieux to it.



Evgeni Malkin kept pace with Sidney Crosby by adding two assists of his own against Boston. They are both tied at 54 points apiece. Connor McDavid continues to lead the NHL with 56 points.

Pittsburgh will host the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday night.

Thanks for reading!


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