Another strong performance by the Penguins and this time it led to a regulation win over the New Jersey Devils. Pittsburgh put up four goals and only allowed one in a game where the Penguins controlled both quantity and quality of shots.
Tristan Jarry stopped 36 out of 37 shots and he continues his strong play this season in games he has started. He has now stopped 161 out of 169 shots (.953) in his five starts. Back up goalies this day in age should be playing upwards of 25-30 games. This is his fifth start of the year and he is on pace to play in 18. Even without his high caliber of play there was already an argument for him playing more. You never want your goalie playing over 60 games in this day in age. The Penguins have two decent backup options and the Penguins are still pace to push Murray above the 60 threshold. It isn’t a great idea and the team should have learned this lesson from Marc-Andre Fleury. One of the attributes Fleury drew praise from over the year is/was his ability to stay healthy and play a ton of games. It was to his detriment in the spring.
I looked at Fleury’s playoff save percentage over the years when he played in more than 60 regular season games. When you combine those springs together his save percentage was a woeful .900. We are talking about a sample of 2,358 playoff shots in years he was overworked.
In the years when Fleury played less than 60 regular season games we see his save percentage jump all the way to .924(!). The sample of playoff shots was 1,918 in years he played below 60 regular season games. It is quite a significant difference and probably more than just a coincidence.
Fleury’s three most memorable playoff runs were in 2008 (.933) when he literally carried the team along with Crosby and Malkin to the Stanley Cup Final, 2017 (.924) when he was flawless against the Washington Capitals despite the Penguins being annihilated, and 2018 (.924) when he led the Golden Knights to the Stanley Cup Final. In those three years he did not play in 60 games. His pathetically terrible playoff runs are dominated by years where he played more than 60 games. Even when the team won it all in 2009 Fleury was below average in the playoffs after playing 60+ games. Doesn’t mean there weren’t some gems mixed in (Games 6/7 vs DET), but the overall body of work suffered.
Marc-Andre Fleury is known for being durable and yet it is tough to dispute when the team tried take advantage of the durability it did not work out for player or team in the playoffs. Matt Murray is not known for being durable and the idea of managing workload should definitely apply to him. He has yet to play in 60 games during a season and this year he is on pace to do just that. Even last year when Murray played 50 games you could argue it was too much. Murray hit the 50 game mark despite missing an entire month of the year. They crammed those 50 games in. Murray played in 40 out of the team’s final 51 games of the year. It put Murray on what would be a 67 game pace over an 82 game season. It doesn’t even include the ten games he played before taking the month off injured earlier in the year. This workload for Murray is a terrible idea!
Matt Murray is a really good goaltender and if the Penguins want him to stay a really good goaltender they need to manage his workload. So far they aren’t doing it for him. Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith are capable of playing some more. The Penguins should have learned their lesson with Fleury.
Time to play the backups more.
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— Hockey Hurts (@Hockey_Hurts) November 23, 2019
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