Despite the celebrations in Pittsburgh, as Sidney Crosby reached his 1,000 point milestone with an overtime win over the Winnipeg Jets at PPG Paints Arena, we may have reached a crossroads for this Pittsburgh Penguins team. Crosby is the 11th fastest player in NHL history to reach the thousand-point mark. His achievement will always be recorded in the record books and he continues to prove his title as the best player in the league. A different story may not find its place in the records. On a much more somber note, that game may have signaled the end of an era. The NHL trade deadline is looming near. On February 28th, the Penguins players and Pittsburgh faithful may lose a very valuable member of their group. Due to the play of new goaltender Matt Murray, the Penguins may have to part ways with long-time starter, Marc-Andre Fleury.
Fleury has been responsible for guarding the Penguins net since his first start in 2003 after he was drafted first overall by the Penguins earlier that year. At the time of his first start, he was the youngest goaltender in the league at only 18 years old with his famous bright yellow pads. He was the highest drafted goaltender in the league ever. The 6-2 player has served as the Penguins' goaltender on two trips to the Stanley Cup Finals and set the stage for the Penguins' most recent trip to the Finals last year when they beat the San Jose Sharks.
Currently, Fleury has two Stanley Cups to his name. In 2009, he saved the Penguins in game 7 as he lunged across the goal parallel to the ice and stopped a puck with his chest to secure the game and the series for Pittsburgh. The Canadian netminder is one of Pittsburgh’s most adored athletes and has adopted the city as his own. He can often be spotted at Pittsburgh Pirates and Steelers games and even has his own cereal. Fleury also has worn a Steelers football helmet on the ice while waving a Terrible Towel and parading a jolly roger around the ice after a Penguins win. Fleury has been a part of the city for 15 years and the ever-present smile on his face behind the mask is a great boost for the team each night.
Statistically, he is also consistently rated as one of the top goaltenders in the NHL and has a career win percentage of .547 after the completion of the 2015-16 season. He has 43 career shutouts and a 2.56 Goals Against Average with a .912 Save Percentage. This season, his GAA is 3.16 to compared to Murray’s 2.27, but Fleury has made more total saves in one fewer game than Murray. The Canadian has also faced over 40 more shots than his counterpart.
Their stat lines are similar and Murray is better in some categories, but the areas where Fleury is lacking suggest poorer defensive performances in front of him. Fleury has faced a much higher quantity of shots and made nearly as many more saves. Stat lines do not tell the whole story. It has been a rougher season for Marc-Andre this year. Sporadic play has made it difficult for him to get in the groove and find his rhythm. He is used to playing on average 55 games per year and more recently, as many as 67 of 82 games of the NHL regular season not including the playoffs. Though it is a great problem to have two excellent goaltenders on the team, it poses a difficult problem for the coaching staff who have to balance their playing time. Goaltenders can often be very streaky in terms of play and when they get hot they can stay hot for a number of games. Head coach Mike Sullivan and his staff have to really pay close attention to practices and the advice of goaltending coach Mike Bales. Having one solid goaltender in the NHL is a rare commodity and the Penguins are very fortunate in their current situation for the success of the team and the fans.
For general manager Jim Rutherford, the salary cap is a restrictive factor. Rutherford has to ensure that the team complies with the salary cap and prepares for the future. Fleury makes $5.75 million which is a significant chunk of the cap room when stars like Crosby and Malkin make $12 million each. Matt Murray currently has an annual salary of $628,333 which is a fraction of his fellow goaltender who hails from Quebec. The easy option for Rutherford is to use Fleury’s leftover value to trade for prospects if he believes that handing the keys to the team over to Murray will lead to team success.
Murray has played just 44 games in the NHL regular season. For some reason, his inexperience is rarely questioned. There was a lot of euphoria surrounding the young goaltender during and after he finished the job in the playoffs after Fleury was sidelined with a concussion. Murray Ave. in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood was temporarily renamed Matt Murray Ave. on one day during the finals last year in support of the rookie. That hype has carried over into this year when Murray returned from injury which he sustained over the summer. However, many people overlook some glaring flaws in Murray’s game. His glove hand is very slow and his ability to drop into the butterfly is also slow compared to Fleury’s freak athleticism and natural quickness with his glove and his ability to make low saves. Murray needs to develop some of his skills while Fleury is still in the prime of his career. Before his injury last year, Fleury helped the Penguins reach the playoffs when all hope seemed lost mid-February before Mike Sullivan was hired as coach.
Murray has played very well so far on those occasions when he does play. Fleury is a different type of player. He prefers to play consistently and get into a rhythm and his numbers reflect better seasons when his playing time is highest. But it seems that the coaching staff puts more stock in Murray at the moment. Keeping both goaltenders would be the ideal situation since Fleury could help to mentor Murray who is only 22 years old and has yet to play a full season in the NHL. Fleury is also a trustworthy backup who could give you a good shot to win any given night.
I think the Penguins would not be doing Fleury justice by trading him away in the middle of the season. He is a vital part of the Penguins locker room and is widely known to be the team prankster. The city and the team have all rallied around Fleury in the past and he has solidified himself in Penguins history. Handing Murray the team may not be the right move so soon. He has yet to play a full season and has an injury history as well. Even at the beginning of the season this year, he had an injury and Fleury filled in for the first few weeks of the season. Fleury has been a great member of the team for years and deserves more from this team. Too many people are ready to just declare Murray the new starter, even with a such a small sample size of his play. The Penguins need to hold onto Fleury for a little while and let the two work together, but Fleury’s value will only go down over time. Now is the time to trade him if they hope for a good return. It is not the respectful thing to do, but sometimes the business decisions take precedent.
