May 21, 2016 5 min read

Time to stick with Flower.

Matt Murray had one of the best runs a rookie goaltender has ever had in the Stanley Cup Playoffs but it might have come to an end in between the second and third periods Friday night in Tampa.

It wasn’t his fault the Penguins were down 4-0. It also wasn’t Marc-Andre Fleury’s fault that he suffered a concussion and hadn’t played since March 31.

Fleury looked sharp in the third period when the Penguins looked like the team that could beat the Lightning in five games.

They didn’t look anything like that team in the first two periods.

There was no way Penguins coach Mike Sullivan could have sat Murray after the way he had played and after Fleury had gone so long without facing a game puck, but Game 4 presented the perfect scenario. Coming back from 4-0 after two periods in the playoffs is just about unheard of and it gave Sullivan a chance to ease Fleury into a game when another goal or two probably wouldn’t matter.

Fleury is a franchise goaltender in his prime. He’s had plenty of good practice time and he looks ready. He has to be the Penguins’ goaltender until he proves he doesn’t deserve to be. The difference, of course, in the playoffs is that that determination has to be made period to period and not game to game.

If Murray is the starter it would mean that Sullivan believes he’s his best goalie. He’s allowed to believe that, but if that’s his decision, Fleury has no choice but to ask to be traded, no matter how far the team goes in the playoffs.

• How would you feel if the Rooney and/or Nutting family came to the taxpayers asking for a new stadium in 2023?

That’s only seven years from now and both buildings would be only 22 years old, but there will be a precedent. The city of Arlington, Texas asked the Rangers if they’d be interested in a nice new ball park to replace the one built way back in 1994. This one will have a fancy, schmancy retractable roofs.

The Ballpark at Arlington opened in 1994 and, like PNC Park, it was made to have the look and feel of a classic old ball park such as Forbes Field or Fenway Park. But when those old ball parks were built, nobody had central air conditioning and Rangers fans have complained about the heat.

You’d think living in Texas, where I felt the hottest heat and most humid humidity of my life once when I visited in August, would get baseball fans used to being hot at a ball game, but the City of Arlington was feeling the heat from the city of Dallas, which wanted the Rangers to move there.

So, it was a preemptive move to spend the taxpayers’ money on making a billionaire happy. The good news is that the taxpayers there were at least dumb enough to vote for the sales tax increase that made the “old” park possible and they’ll get to vote on whether to extend the tax to pay for the new one.

Can you imagine trading PNC Park – the nicest baseball park in which I have ever sat – for an air conditioned stadium with a roof?

By the way, I can imagine either local family asking for a new facility in seven years – without a hint of embarrassment.

• Did you hear about the Washington Post poll on the name Redskins? The paper polled Native Americans in all 50 states and the District of Columbia and found that 90 percent of them are not offended by the name.

Barbara Bruce, a Chippewa teacher who grew up on a reservation in North Dakota said, “I’m proud of being Native American and of the Redskins. I’m not ashamed of that at all. I like that name.”

The nickname for teams at Turtle Mountain Community High School, where she teaches is the Braves. Eighty percent who identify as liberal, 90 percent of those enrolled in a tribe and 91 percent of those between the age of 18 and 39 say the name doesn’t offend them.

The Post points out that the general public appears to object more strongly to the name than Indians do.

Gabriel Nez, a 29-year old Navajo, who grew up on a reservation, told the paper, “I really don’t mind it. I like it. We call other natives ‘skins, too.”

Politicians such as Senator Harry Reid and media snobs such as Bob Costas have said the poll doesn’t change their belief that the name is offensive.

• I’m not Native American and can’t begin to know if the name Redskins should be offensive to those who are, but do you know what I would find offensive, not to mention condescending, if I were Native American?

People who aren’t Native American, such as Costas and Reid, telling me what I should find offensive.

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday sports column for the Observer-Reporter.