Yes, beating Nashville and Ottawa last year was the same as beating Washington and Columbus. Give me a break. Fleury beat 2 legit cup contenders while Nashville barely made the playoffs and Ottawa making the ecf was a joke.
Fleury
- Thread starter pbrad
- Start date
And the year before? He was completely lucky then too? Come on dude....your making yourself look foolish.
My exact feelings. People forget he was playing lights out in 16 before he got the concussion. And he was stellar in last years playoffs, except for 1 game, and unfortunately it was the last game he played for the Pens.
Goalies are like a fine wine, they get better with age.
And ours is 23, he is pretty damn good now. Look around the league.
Fleury is 33
Holtby is 28
Martin Jones is 28
Jonathan Quick is 32
Carey Price is 30
Corey Crawford is 33
Ben Bishop is 31
Pekka Rinne is 35
Tukka Rask is 31
Devan Dubnyk is 32
Bobrovsky is 29
Freddie Andersen is 28
Hellebuyck is 25
Vasilevskiy is 23
Murray is 23
Obviously guys like Lundquist, Luongo, Miller are 35+
So.....I mean, you have to think Murray's best days are ahead of him.
I'm not sure what sports minded human being would have chanced keeping MAF and letting MM go in the salary cap era.
I never brought up 16, but you brought up me saying he was Conn Smythe 2 years in a row.
Go back and check the stats on the 2016 playoffs and tell me how many shots we blocked, how injured everybody was in an effort to insulate the young goalie. Like I said before, it’s not hard to see that Sullivan came from the Tortarella tree.
Murray is a positionally sound goalie, nobody can take that away from him. He’s not very athletic and will never be a team leader. I prefer Tristan Jarry’s style over Murray’s any day of the week....and there are quite a few in the organization who agree with me including a coach currently behind the bench who I have talked to a few times. The next 2 years will say a lot about Murray. For the money he’s going to demand, he better be able to play 80 games a year like the previous goalie could.
columbus has never won a playoff series in their history
washington? that's the team yinzers love to call "chokers", so now they are "great"?
ottawa was lighting fleury up, nashville didn't make the final by being a bad team and they won the presidents trophy this year
Murray had problems this year because of injuries, his father passing, and some technical flaws that showed up in his game ...... if you aren't as athletic, you have to play great angles/positioning, you need to track the puck, read the play and move quickly and fluidly, and you need to be really good technically ...... Murray dropped off some this year in some of these factors ..... IMO, he needs to get a little stronger and go back to basics during the off season and make sure his game is technically sound (and that obviously includes the glove hand).
Jarry is a really good prospect but has a ways to go ...... he played 26 games this season in the NHL and started off very strong, outplaying Murray until January and after teams had film on him and played against him, the last 10 games, his performance went downhill quickly and substantially ( I think the last 6 or 7 games, his average save % was <90%). Now 26 games is not enough to tell how he will do in the long run and Jarry is still a very good prospect but late in the season and in the playoffs, he was clearly the 3rd goalie in the organization ...... Jarry showed potential but also that he has a lot of work to do.... he is going to have to improve a fair amount overall to take over as the number 1 goalie for the Pens..... the experience he got this season in the NHL should help his development..... we'll see how much he improves over time..... he obviously has good potential.
I agree with you that the next two years are going to be important for Murray but also for Jarry ..... one of them will likely be the long term number 1 goalie for the Pens and the other is likely to be traded..... right now, I think Murray is the one who will stay .... time will tell and nothing would surprise me.
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In one game. In games 1 and 2 that the pens only managed a split, fleury was far and away their best player.
Again, you Fleury supporters view the game differently, or at least history. Last year's playoff results. MAF was good, especially in big games, but MM was great, especially in big games. Why some of you can admit MAF's great play but completely ignore or excuse Murray's is beyond me.
MAF 9-6 record, 2.56 GAA, .924 save % 2 shut outs.
MM , 7-3 record, 1.70 GAA, .937% save %, 3 shut outs.
When did I ever say murray wasn't great too? I was just stating that fleury wasn't getting torched by Ottawa the whole time he was in, aside from that miserable game he was their best player in games 1 and 2 when the pens just could not put the puck in the net.
I know, but there is this false narrative going on in Pittsburgh that is completely revisionist. That Fleury always outplayed Murray but Sullivan liked and preferred Murray. Now the latter maybe true, but Murray's playoff numbers in his two seasons were better than any of Marc's numbers ever in the playoffs, and Murray's regular season numbers, as small as sample size as it is, was better than Fleury's. When you combine that with one 33 years old, one 23 years old, one making over $2million more a year, well I mean it was absolutely a no brainer.
There is this false narrative and just plain wrong assertions that Fleury outplayed Murray yet Murray got the benefit of the doubt.
Now this year? MAF has outplayed Murray, MAF has outplayed EVERYONE. But this was after the decision has been made. I just am worried that people are now going to get hostile and not support Murray which would be absolutely tragic. And really effing stupid.
Murray outplayed fleury in their last season together.
Fleury greatly outplayed Murray this season
You’re worried people won’t support Murray. What are you, his caregiver? People were all over Fleury for years when he underperformed, why should Murray be treated any different?
If Murray plays like this year again next year, fans will be ready to run him out of town and go to the Jarry/Fleury model in 19/20 which imo should have always been the plan. The sad part about this is that Murray’s stock will be much lower than it should be.
Personally I'm just a fan of goaltenders, along with being a pens fan. So the pens having both fleury and Murray was the greatest thing ever to me.
I agree with pretty much everything you posted though, right down to while Sullivan did prefer Murray, murray was outplaying fleury. Only thing I think you could argue at all is the regular season numbers. Murray outplayed fleury last year by a wide margin, but murray's numbers last year weren't better than fleury's the couple years before when he was the starter.... they were almost identical.
I hated seeing fleury leave, but I did not want to risk losing murray. Even the biggest murray haters would have to admit he's at least almost as good as fleury, which at 10 years younger makes it the easy decision, $2 mill cheaper helped also. I would've absolutely loved if they could've done something to keep both, but losing murray just wasn't an option.
If his play isn’t good- why should fans “support “ him?
Why is this so personal to you?
Should fans support letang even though he sucked and his going brain dead for 5 minutes a game pretty much lost us several games?
It’s a pro town and these are pro players.
Their level of fan support will only be a function of their performance, nothing more.
Why should Murray be treated differently than any other Pittsburgh athlete? If he excels, the fans will support him. If he doesn't, then they won't.
I agree. But it is not like he has "stunk". He just didn't play as well as MAF did this year. Of course, no goalie did. My point is, I have seen how these extremists are skewing and rewriting history in this weird love obsession for Fleury. The kid just won 2 titles. And he is minimized as a bit player not a prime reason, which in fact he was.
Murray was bad this year.
We’ve gone over this a hundred times...he was amongst the worst starting goalies during the season.
Certainly there are reasons and rationalizations as to why.
He’s a starting goalie on a team that expects to win championships. It’s not a lifetime achievement position.
He’ll round back into form and will be supported or he’ll struggle and be booed.
Murray was definitely bad this year, no way to argue that. The thing is, that doesn't just erase his 2 cups. People may only remember what you've done most recently, but your career body of work is still what you get judged on, and his is still excellent.
He was average, not "definitely bad". He just wasn't very good or great. We needed great this year with our defense. I will bet on him rebounding next year.
Murray needs to be better moving forward. He had a rough year no question about it. But he battled some injuries and also had a big off ice issue with his dad being sick for awhile and eventually passing away. Remember he left the team for a week prior to his dad passing and then left again for his dad passing away. I know as a professional we all want to think all that stuff should be blocked out and it shouldn't impact him on the ice. But I think it clearly did. He is only 23. He went through a lot this season.
In saying that, it is amazing to me how many Pens fans have turned so quickly on him based on what Fleury has done this season and in turn acting like Fleury was some indestructible force in net for this team and the Pens made a mistake keeping Murray and all that nonsense.
And I don't say that to diminish Fleury because he might be my favorite Pgh athlete ever. The guy is extremely likable and he was really good for much of his career here. I really hope he wins the Cup again this season for Vegas.
But the reality is Murray was the better goalie at the time the decision was made, Murray was much cheaper, much younger, Fleury was an erratic goalie for much of the past 4 years or so, etc...
Murray is the Pens goalie and the decision to keep him was obvious. Hopefully he puts some of the off ice issues and injuries behind him moving forward and gets back to the form he had during the 2 Cup runs.
In saying that, it is amazing to me how many Pens fans have turned so quickly on him based on what Fleury has done this season and in turn acting like Fleury was some indestructible force in net for this team and the Pens made a mistake keeping Murray and all that nonsense.
And I don't say that to diminish Fleury because he might be my favorite Pgh athlete ever. The guy is extremely likable and he was really good for much of his career here. I really hope he wins the Cup again this season for Vegas.
But the reality is Murray was the better goalie at the time the decision was made, Murray was much cheaper, much younger, Fleury was an erratic goalie for much of the past 4 years or so, etc...
Murray is the Pens goalie and the decision to keep him was obvious. Hopefully he puts some of the off ice issues and injuries behind him moving forward and gets back to the form he had during the 2 Cup runs.
I think what is really funny and ironic is now I see so many of the Pittsburgh media folk slamming fans for now making this a MAF vs MM thing, instead of just being happy for Fleury, yet they are the exact ones who keep on discussing this via articles or radio time. So they have caused much of this, now they are blaming the fans.
Because the PGH sports media is rarely critical of anything except for the fans. And Pitt.
His gsaa ranks 51st among goalies and 3rd among penguin goalies
His ga % is 48th out of 69 ranked goalies- also worst among penguins goalies
His save % is the worst of yhe pens and 59th in the league
Gaa 51st ranked and worst of the pens goalies
He was bad. Not average .
He played with the same team and performed worse than desmith and jarry statistically.
It’s okay to accept that....and hope he’s good next season
.907 SV% and 2.92 GAA is bad, nothing average about that. His playoff numbers, those were better, much more average. But yeah, I would absolutely bet on him rebounding next year too. He's earned the benefit of the doubt and he had a rough personal year, next year should be much better.
It’s not a fleury vs Murray thing.
The concerns with Murray’s play this season were because his play was bad.
Only you tried to read more into that concern over some pining for fleury.
To me it was always about his level of play .
He’s our goalie.
Fleury isn’t.
I was talking about his playoff numbers. Sorry for the confusion.
No goalie talk on here for 4 days ... what's going on? ....... LOL !
A couple thoughts on Fleury and Murray ......
- FLEURY ..... about 8, maybe 10 years ago, I started saying Fleury needed a full time goalie coach that understood modern techniques to replace part time Gilles Meloche ..... Fleury had some issues and I felt he needed a new goalie coach to get him moving forward. ...... eventually Mike Bales was brought in and did help Fleury "modernize" his game especially in post play, goalie movement, and to some extent positioning..... and it did help him.
Moving forward, Dave Prior, the Las Vegas goaltending coach was adamant with the top brass that they pick Fleury in the draft ..... Prior said that Fleury was a really good goalie still playing at a high level but after studying Fleury's game/film, Prior felt that he could make Fleury an even better goalie with some adjustments.
Fleury and Prior have been mum on what changes have been made in Fleury's game, but it seems obvious to me that Fleury is playing much more aggressive angles and positioning being out farther on the edge of the crease and moving around and staying out farther then before yet getting to the post when he needs to ....... his movements look more controlled and his positioning is consistent wherever the puck is..... being out farther (but not too far) cuts the angle down and leaves less open net and is a good style for Fleury as when you are out farther, you have to move a little farther to get to the next position .... Fleury's quickness and athletism allows him to do that more so then a slower or less athletic goalie .... at present, Fleury is tracking the puck, reading plays, and moving really well .... he is obviously playing with a lot of confidence right now .... it looks like Prior has helped his game .... I'll be interested to see if he can keep it up against the Caps .... that will not be easy.
- MURRAY - IMO, Matt can improve his glove hand in two ways .... 1) practicing catching the puck over and over, etc. and 2) something Sullivan said was interesting and maybe informative .... when asked by the media about Murray's problems with the glove hand, Sullivan said that when goalies butterfly, they all open up the top part of the net to some extent, which is true, so Sullivan didn't think there was a big problem ..... of course, the opponents were shooting about 80% of their elevated shots to Murray's glove hand because everyone knew there was a problem ...... the point is that when possible depending on the situation, Murray should consider coming out 6-12 inches in his positioning to cut the angle down some and leave less open net over both the glove and blocker when he butterflies so that he has less open net to cover with his glove .... a relatively short distance out can make a big difference in the amount of open net.... just a thought.
A couple thoughts on Fleury and Murray ......
- FLEURY ..... about 8, maybe 10 years ago, I started saying Fleury needed a full time goalie coach that understood modern techniques to replace part time Gilles Meloche ..... Fleury had some issues and I felt he needed a new goalie coach to get him moving forward. ...... eventually Mike Bales was brought in and did help Fleury "modernize" his game especially in post play, goalie movement, and to some extent positioning..... and it did help him.
Moving forward, Dave Prior, the Las Vegas goaltending coach was adamant with the top brass that they pick Fleury in the draft ..... Prior said that Fleury was a really good goalie still playing at a high level but after studying Fleury's game/film, Prior felt that he could make Fleury an even better goalie with some adjustments.
Fleury and Prior have been mum on what changes have been made in Fleury's game, but it seems obvious to me that Fleury is playing much more aggressive angles and positioning being out farther on the edge of the crease and moving around and staying out farther then before yet getting to the post when he needs to ....... his movements look more controlled and his positioning is consistent wherever the puck is..... being out farther (but not too far) cuts the angle down and leaves less open net and is a good style for Fleury as when you are out farther, you have to move a little farther to get to the next position .... Fleury's quickness and athletism allows him to do that more so then a slower or less athletic goalie .... at present, Fleury is tracking the puck, reading plays, and moving really well .... he is obviously playing with a lot of confidence right now .... it looks like Prior has helped his game .... I'll be interested to see if he can keep it up against the Caps .... that will not be easy.
- MURRAY - IMO, Matt can improve his glove hand in two ways .... 1) practicing catching the puck over and over, etc. and 2) something Sullivan said was interesting and maybe informative .... when asked by the media about Murray's problems with the glove hand, Sullivan said that when goalies butterfly, they all open up the top part of the net to some extent, which is true, so Sullivan didn't think there was a big problem ..... of course, the opponents were shooting about 80% of their elevated shots to Murray's glove hand because everyone knew there was a problem ...... the point is that when possible depending on the situation, Murray should consider coming out 6-12 inches in his positioning to cut the angle down some and leave less open net over both the glove and blocker when he butterflies so that he has less open net to cover with his glove .... a relatively short distance out can make a big difference in the amount of open net.... just a thought.
Well...........this has certainly been anything but boring so far. My god, this is fantastic hockey.
Man that was fun and a frenetic pace. It is hard to fault Sullivan the past three seasons, but what I did not like is his handling of Ian Cole and Ryan Reaves. Reaves shows again he can play. He brings more to the table than Connor Sheary. I am not saying he could have turned the Washington series, but his presence when Wilson was running around would have been interesting. He also can play and give the Pens something they lack. Oh, and if he couldn't fit here? Vegas rolls 4 lines with focus on speed even moreso than the Pens. My complaint about Sully is he seems to have guys he likes and dont like and plays them accordingly. That is Bylsma like.
Oh and give Vegas credit, they managed to make plays and score, because they aren't playing those popgun offenses of the Pacific Division anymore.
Oh and give Vegas credit, they managed to make plays and score, because they aren't playing those popgun offenses of the Pacific Division anymore.
