Pittsburgh lost 3-1 to the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday which clinched a playoff berth for the Flyers. Philadelphia made an impressive run to find their way into the postseason.
Pittsburgh, based on their roster moves today, had no care for the situation and were just worried about getting through today and focusing on the playoffs.
Unfortunately for the Penguins they were unable to get out of the game injury free. One of the last players they needed to get hurt did get hurt. Pittsburgh may have their top two goalies out with concussions.
Losing Marc-Andre Fleury to his second concussion certainly wasn't a good thing, but at least the team had Matt Murray to lean on who has played extremely well during his time as a professional in both the AHL and NHL. Losing Murray without having Fleury at 100% is a bitter pill to swallow entering the playoffs.
The idea to play Murray given this situation was a peculiar one. Here is Mike Sullivan's reasoning for it.
Sullivan on Murray's status & on his decision to start the rookie... pic.twitter.com/1aBCrYKhJv
— Bill West (@BWest_Trib) April 9, 2016
I don't agree with the coach on how important today's "experience" was. I don't believe that by playing today Matt Murray was going to magically become a better goalie for the playoffs even if he played the whole game and had a shutout. He's a professional goaltender who is good at his craft. Judging by the comments he made when Fleury went down he was mentally ready to carry the load of a #1 goaltender.
Who knows? Maybe both Marc-Andre Fleury and Matt Murray are ready to go for game one of round one but I still don't know how you risk one of the most important players given their depth chart for a meaningless game. Even if Marc-Andre Fleury is ready to go he will not have played for two weeks and considering the kind of injury he just suffered there are no guarantees of success. There are just a lot of unknowns at the goaltender position right now due to injury and it didn't have to be that way.
There will be a Matt Murray update tomorrow. Hopefully it is a good one. Pittsburgh has played too well to go into the playoffs with the Jeff Zatkoff Experience.
Thanks for reading!