Jun 18, 2016 4 min read

Maybe Marc-Andre Fleury is the wrong goalie for the Penguins to trade. Matt Murray was the guy standing between the pipes when the Penguins won the Stanley Cup last Sunday night, and he deserved to be based on the way he played while Fleury was out, but is he really the better goaltender?

Maybe not.

And he might not be their best goaltender for the immediate future.

The Penguins have probably already been told by Fleury or one of his representatives that he has no interest in starting next season as Murray’s backup and it seems to be a forgone conclusion that he will be traded.

And the consensus in Penguinsland seems to be that he should be.

Fleury might have been the best goalie in the league for the first two months of the season when the Penguins’ former coach Mike Johnston was perfecting his plan of hiding Sidney Crosby and presenting the most boring hockey team in North America night after night. His .921 save percentage and 2.29 goals-against average were the best of his career when playing a full season.

Fleury will be 32 in November. Not only is that not old for a goaltender, it’s the age when many of the greats put up their best numbers.

Patrick Roy (who was born on the same day as Mario Lemieux) put up his best numbers when he was exactly the same age as Fleury, in 1997.

Tom Barrasso put up his best save percentage and goals-against numbers in the 1997-98 and 1998-99 seasons. He turned 32 in 1997.

Martin Brodeur won Vezina Trophies at 30, 31, 34 and 35.

Dominik Hasek won them at 29,30,32,33,34 and 36.

Jacques Plante won them at 30, 31,33 and 40.

Gump Worsley? At 36 and 38.

Fleury is in his goalie golden years. Murray is 22 and has been spectacular for about eight weeks.

In Game 6 against the San Jose Sharks, Murray faced two more shots in the third period than you did.

That’s right. He was asked to make two saves.

Murray has been one of hockey’s best goalie prospects for a couple of years after setting records in the American Hockey League. There is no reason to believe that he won’t be a solid NHL goaltender for the next 15 or 20 years, but he’s probably not the Penguins’ best goalie.

Call me crazy, but if I were Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford, I would be seeing what kind of offers I could get for Murray and I’d be looking to hang on to Fleury as he heads into his prime.

• Want the sports statistic of the week, if not 2016? You know how many arrests there were during the Penguins’ Stanley Cup parade, attended by 350-400,000 people?

None.

Astounding.

• The Pirates aren’t going to catch the Chicago Cubs, who have the biggest lead in the National League Central Division at this time of year since 1994, and were 13 games ahead of them going into Saturday.

It’s all about the one-game Wild Card, again.

• Pro football season starts this week. The Canadian Football League opens Thursday. I enjoy watching the games. There are CFL rules that would make the NFL better. My favorite is stopping the clock after every play in the last three minutes of each half. It eliminates a lot of quarterback kneel-downs. Teams with a late lead are more often forced to, you know, keep playing football.

I’d also love to see an NFL game played on the CFL’s wider field with 20-yard end zones.

And there are no touchbacks.

• Let me know how ESPN’s “O.J. Made in America” turns out.

• As great as Sidney Crosby has been for the Penguins on and off the ice, he is still under appreciated by way too many people. He has lived up to every bit of hype and there has never been a Pittsburgh sports superstar who has handled himself better and represented his sport and his city better.

Do you know anybody who wouldn’t want their son to grow up to be like Crosby?

John Steigerrwald writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.