Pittsburgh Penguins rookie goaltender Matt Murray has been far from ideal in the Stanley Cup Finals, but he still has his team one win away from lifting a fourth Stanley Cup trophy.
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There is no magic button, even if the correlation between Mike Sullivan’s deft attempts to a get player’s attention and that player nearly immediately elevating his game is unmistakable.
“We’ve had some pressure at times”, he said. The Penguins allowed three of the goals in their loss. I feel I should probably have more (goals in the final).
The Penguins are sitting pretty right now, poised to take it all on Thursday in their home city. But the Sharks showed an ability to take advantage of the added time to prepare for the next game. “That’s the only thing we are talking about”.
“We have a team that has a lot of guys that have been to the top of the mountain, so to speak”, said Cullen. Matt Murray played 13 games this season, but his achievement in the regular season was subpar. The Kings’ win came on a goal by defenseman Alec Martinez in double-overtime. But for a team that will likely have to lean on their heavy-minute players to extend the Cup final to a Game 6, any extra time off is a bonus.
“When he turns it on, obviously what he can do for us is huge for our team”, Cole said.
If the Penguins win Game 5, they will be the first Pittsburgh-based team to win a league championship at home since the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates, when Bill Mazeroski’s walk-off home run beat the New York Yankees in Game 7 of the World Series. “We’ve got a great opportunity”, Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Center. San Jose will be in desperation mode here and will need to win three games in a row in order to fulfil their Stanley Cup quest.
Among the strengths that have carried the Penguins this far is their ability to quickly put mistakes or triumphs behind them and maintain a disciplined defensive game. “It certainly gives us an extra day to rest and prepare”.
Defense was supposed to be the Penguins weakness and it was for large portions of the regular season, but the group as a whole put it together at the flawless time for a lengthy run through the playoffs.
He noticed rookie Conor Sheary looking worn out during the Eastern Conference finals against Tampa Bay and sat him for Game 5.
Penguins coach Mike Sullivan agrees with DeBoer’s assessment. “I think that’s one of the reasons why we’ve been able to win as many games as we have, is just that short-term focus”.
“We got to find a way to get some from some other people, too”. “I think that’s just human nature”. He was outshined by Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy and Washington’s Braden Holtby as they stood up to the Penguins’ offensive onslaught in the previous two rounds.
“When you talk about biggest games in Pittsburgh in the last 50 years, this game is in the conversation”, said Joe Starkey, talk radio host for Pittsburgh’s 93.7 The Fan. We’ve played well on the road.
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“Our players are well aware, just based on their comments after the game last night, excited to be in the position we’re in, but by no means do we think that we’ve accomplished what we’ve set out to do”, Sullivan said.
