at what point in time will it be okay to be concerned with our goal tending
Pens
- Thread starter SoufOaklin4Life
- Start date
Points in October and November count just the same
If Murray continues his horrid goaltending, only thing we will be playing for is the Jack Hughes Sweepstakes in Jan/Feb..
I get it. However you ask when people should be concerned...but they have to pay attention to be concerned. That was my point. And people aren’t paying much attention right now.
It is funny that you posted this though, because I was just actually thinking after the first goal that Murray is essentially riding via the equity that he built up through winning two cups. Take away those two cups, and we’d be thinking that we have an average keeper. Nothing more. Nothing less.
February
As long as you’re at .500 at that point and start playing good hockey...you’ll be in the playoffs and on a roll. Home ice in hockey means little in the playoffs. It’s who is hot.
However, besides the 4 game road trip the Pens as a team have been mediocre.
Hmmm. I must not be paying attention then. 2 of the first three goals tonight weren’t his fault. When I am paying attention the problem is more the play in front of him
The Pens do this every season. They’re very good at managing an 82 game schedule. They’ll be fine.
The defense stinks -
But Murray has been below average.
He’s giving up 4 goals a game with regularity .
The book is out on him.
Shoot glove side and it’s a goal.
People complained about Flower’s glove hand too. It’s a skill set you can learn.
Murray has been bad. Johnson has been bad. Brassard has been bad. Rust has been bad. All the big decisions in the last year and a half are looking mighty questionable. Obviously anyone who paid attention knew the Johnson signing would be a disaster and it is hurting the team in a big way, but it is surprising Murray has not shown much improvement.
And you know what helped mask it? Overtime wins and shootout wins. I always felt the Pens had artificially inflated point totals because they were better than everyone else once a game got past regulation time. Fleury wasn’t always great in regulation but was worth another 10 points a season due to his shootout abilities.
Too many concussions, he is seeing double and stopping the wrong puck.
Yeah, report from practice yesterday was that Rust was on the 1st line with Simon and Crosby, 2nd line was Hagelin/Malkin/ Hornqvist, 3rd line Sheahan with Guentzel/Kessel, and 4th line Cullen who will probably be with Aston-Reese and either Sprong or Wilson (they called up Aston-Reese and Garrett Wilson from WBS and sent Grant down) ...... the 3rd and 4th lines have not been playing well and not scoring much so this would be an attempt to even out the lines and get better scoring throughout.
They also separated Malkin and Crosby on the power play units in practice although I'm not sure if this will carry over to the game tonight with the Caps.
DeSmith will start in goal tonight against the Caps.
Losing Schultz has really hurt the defense.
In a case like this and there's precedent, you stop the puck in the middle?
Trust me after a long night, with an early morning T time I always swing at the golf ball in the middle.
"it's five o'clock somewhere"
Signed: Mr Buffett
Go PITT & CSU Rams!
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I'm concerned although it is early and Murray could play great from here on ...... the thing that concerns me so far is that Matt was said to have worked hard over the summer to improve his game and although he has had a few good games, overall he has been inconsistent often showing many of the same flaws as last year.... his advanced analytics are poor so far this season again..... I have some thoughts about Murray's play but that will await another post.
Goalieman
Really enjoy reading your posts as you are one of the few here that provide some great analytical information. When you get a chance to post again, can you address whether you think Murrys struggles are related to NHL snipers figuring out his weaknesses or is it something in his game that has changed from when he was a wall in the CUp runs.
Pens played great last night, Holtby simply stole the caps a win. As number 1 goalies are supposed to do.
Desmith gave us a chance.
Desmith gave us a chance.
I think it is clearly time to start worrying about Murray. He has been inconsistent at best all of last year and now into this year. Some of the issues are the style of play and our defense not playing well enough but Murray has clearly been sub par to this point in the season. He needs to be better.
And yeah, it is only November so the worry is not that great from a fan perspective. But I guarantee you despite what they say publicly the Pens are worried about his game as well.
And yeah, it is only November so the worry is not that great from a fan perspective. But I guarantee you despite what they say publicly the Pens are worried about his game as well.
Yep, Holtby stole that one. Also, there was some really bad luck for the Pens, never saw so many posts or empty nets missed. It is not good right now folks. Can't sugar coat it any other way.
"Snipers" figure out all goalie's weaknesses. That's what they do. IMO, Murray's issues are far more that his glove hand. He is a big goalie, a fundamental goalie who when playing well, squares to shooters, gives little to shoot at and blocks shots. He is moving too much, scrambling, losing angles, making himself smaller exposing the upper part of the net. Lost some confidence, probably overcompensating for the lack of defense in front of him that is giving up glorious scoring chance after chance.
Last night was the first time in 5 games they looked like their selves
Letang has been excellent
But the pairing partners are below the line
I agree with you guys about last nights game ...... the Pens played a very good game and got some good goaltending from DeSmith but Holtby stole the show with an outstanding performance ...... I thought the line changes that Sullivan made worked well as we got many great opportunities to score and the new 4th line was a big upgrade ...... hope Malkin isn't suspended.
..... and "pittbb80", I'll give my thoughts on Murray as requested later today.
..... and "pittbb80", I'll give my thoughts on Murray as requested later today.
And all right and fair. The Johnson signing is going to be an albatross and Hornqvist got too much term and money for a guy the other signings dictate has to play down in the lineup, even if he retains his skill as he ages.
Some thoughts about Matt Murray's play ......
I think Matt's poor play last year and early this season compared to the Cup years are multifactorial .....
1) Shooters around the league do study film on goalies to find the goalies strength and weakness and then try to exploit the weaknesses ..... I think this has been a significant factor in Murray's poorer play ..... glove hand high for example.
2) I believe that injuries have also negatively affected Matt's performance ...... in the last two years, Murray has had the most injuries in the league for a goalie which decreases practice time and affects conditioning and overall performance.
3) His father's death last season probably had a mental affect on Murray which could have affected his play but hopefully that is less as time goes on.
4) I believe there are some technical aspects of his game which could be improved ..... (a) the obvious worse technical problem is a poor glove hand ...... the best way to improve is practice taking shots to the glove hand and he could consider playing more aggressive angles/positioning as the farther out he comes, the less open net over the glove hand to shoot at ..... (b) "recruits" is right in that when Murray first came up his angles/positioning was really good and his movement was smooth/flawless, not as good IMO right now ... the other night he pushed across and lost an edge stumbling, leading to a goal ... and there was a power play recently where the puck handler had the puck 1-2' behind the goal line and ~15' to Murray's right .... Matt was in good position sealing off the post but as the puck carrier came across the goal line toward the goal and shooting from the corner of the crease with open net to the far side because Murray never moved off the post to get in proper position to cut the angle and either stuff the shot or poke check the puck ..... the angle of the puck was being changed as the puck carrier was moving toward the low slot and Murray never moved off the post.. he has been getting behind on plays like this more often then his Cup years IMO... (c) Murray said himself that in addition to problems with his glove hand, he felt he had some problems with the 5 hole and worked on those two things over the summer ..... with the 5 hole, you have to make sure your pads come together when you butterfly and make sure your stick is in proper position ..... you can also work on the 5 hole opening during movement ...(d) I thought he had problems with the 6 hole also (between the arm and chest over the blocker) ...... most common reasons for problems with the 6 hole are poor stick positioning which flairs the elbow/arm out from the chest leaving a bigger opening .... in young kids, if they are using the wrong size goalie stick where the paddle is too long for them, the same thing happens with the 6 hole (I don't think Matt is using the wrong stick) ...... Murray's problem with the 6 hole may have more to do with new rules for goalies where they have to have their chest protector fastened tight to the chest. It can no longer be oversized and hang out to the side partially blocking the 6 hole .... Murray is thin and fastening the chest protector down to his body likely took some inches off the coverage of the 6 hole.... (e) I don't think he uses the poke check enough nor at times properly and could play breakaways better/more consistently.
5) Please, I don't mean to imply that Matt Murray is not a very talented goalie because he is talented, or that he is terrible technically because he is not terrible, I just think there are some technical things that he, as all goalies, could work on to get better and that maybe he needs to be a little more consistent with some of those technical aspects .... there is a fine line between being outstanding and being average or below..... he does need to work on his weaknesses and really needs to improve that glove hand.
6) Some fans say the problem is that the Pens defense is bad and that is the difference in Murray and while it is true that a goalies save% and GAA is going to be worse if he is playing behind a bad vs good defense, the advance analytics which separate out how a goalie is doing irregardless of how his defense is doing, showed Matt's stats to be overall worse then the average NHL goalie and that continues so far this season ... for example, his "delta save %" which is the difference between his actual save % and the expected save % based on the difficulty of shots he has faced is again a minus this season as last which means his save % is worse then what the average NHL goalies (not top goalies) save % would be on the same shot difficulty ..... his save % on low, medium, and high danger shots were way below average most of last season and are variable but not great so far this seson..... his goals saved above average (GSAA) numbers are negative ....again poor.
7) Last, I wonder if Fleury moving to Las Vegas affected Matt Murray ...... he and MAF used to have intense competition in practice which often makes you improve ..... MAF was also a mentor to Murray and also gave him a lot of pointers on playing goal in the NHL when they were teammates ..... I don't know if MAF leaving had any affect on MM but I wonder.
Sorry for the long post.
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I don't know...Flower was a supremely athletic goalie. Murray, is more technical and when you're a technical guy with an already glaring hole in your game, I'm not so sure that's fixable. It's been a concern for long enough to see improvement and that's just not happened. He can't even get it to a below avg level...
Pens in rematch with the Devils tonight ...... forward lines the same for the Pens .... Oleksiak replacing Riikola on defense ...... and Casey DeSmith in goal again ...... Sullivan said that Murray is working on his game with Mike Buckley, the goalie coach.
Pens vs Tampa Bay tonight .....
Crosby out with an upper body injury.
Tanner Pearson, the newest Penguin, should be in the game.
Matt Murray is in goal ....... his last start was 11/5/18 and per Murray since then he has been working hard with goalie coach, Mike Buckley, on the technical aspects of his game ..... hopefully on some of the things I mentioned in a post above about my thoughts regarding Matt Murray, part of which was technical aspects of his game that I felt he could improve .... we'll see.
Crosby out with an upper body injury.
Tanner Pearson, the newest Penguin, should be in the game.
Matt Murray is in goal ....... his last start was 11/5/18 and per Murray since then he has been working hard with goalie coach, Mike Buckley, on the technical aspects of his game ..... hopefully on some of the things I mentioned in a post above about my thoughts regarding Matt Murray, part of which was technical aspects of his game that I felt he could improve .... we'll see.
