May 20, 2017 5 min read

I would have started Fleury.

Maybe that’s why I’m not the Penguins’ head coach and Mike Sullivan is. Matt Murray stood strong and made some big saves, especially late, to help the Penguins beat the Ottawa Senators 3-2 Friday night and even the Eastern Conference Final at two games apiece.

I still think Fleury is their best goaltender and deserved to start after his teammates hung him out to dry in Game 3.

And maybe that’s why Sullivan didn’t start him – because he felt the team would play better in front of Murray. It did. Murray faced 26 shots and the Penguins actually outshot the Senators.

It was only the third time in the postseason that the Penguins outshot their opponents. In last year’s run to the Stanley Cup, the Penguins outshot their opponents in every game but five.

In this postseason, Fleury has seen an average of 35 shots per game. Last year, Murray saw an average of 27 and never saw more than 26 in a game from Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Final through Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final.

Fleury only saw three games with fewer than 30 shots. He faced 26 in a 5-2 loss to the Capitals in Game 6 and 29 in his Game 7 shutout win.

Ottawa had 23 shots in his 1-0 shutout in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Final.

So what is it about the Penguins that makes them give up more shots in games with Fleury in goal?

Do they subconsciously have more confidence in him and pay less attention to defense? It doesn’t matter to Sullivan. He got exactly what he expected from his team in Game 4. It was a gutsy call and, since his team won, it was the right one.

• If the hit by Bobby Ryan that gave Penguins defenseman Chad Ruhwedel a concussion at the end of the first period Friday night wasn’t deserving of a penalty, then the NHL needs to stop pretending it cares about head injuries.

Ruhwedel was bent over along the boards still feeling the effects of a blatant high stick that wasn’t called and Ryan took full advantage of the opportunity. A league that really cared about preventing injuries would make that worth at least a five-minute major penalty.

Of course, NBC’s studio analysts, Mike Milbury and Keith Jones, called it a clean hit, which tells you all you need to know.

• Speaking of concussions, Tom Brady’s wife, Gisele, almost made her husband a bigger story than Donald Trump and Russia when she mentioned in an interview that Tom suffered one last season but never missed any playing time. She told CBS’ Charlie Rose, “He had a concussion last year. He had pretty much concussions every, I mean we don’t talk about, but he does have concussions.” Brady’s agent and the Patriots denied that he had been diagnosed with a concussion.

Would you put it past Patriots coach Bill Belichick to ignore a possible concussion to his starting quarterback? I sure wouldn’t.

• A recent Harvard Study found that an NFL player is 6.9 times more likely to get a concussion in a game than NHL, NBA and MLB players combined.

• The fear of injury is apparently behind the NFL’s next big move to give their customers less football for their money. It already has shortened games by stopping the clock less often and traded kickoff returns for touchbacks. Now it’s about to shorten overtime from 15 minutes to 10 minutes. It could be passed at the owners’ meetings this week. It’s all about reducing the number of snaps for the purpose of reducing injuries. Think of the injuries that could be prevented if the games were 48 minutes long instead of 60.

How about four 12-minutes quarters?

• Of course, none of the recent stupid ideas will prevent more injuries than shrinking the players would. Real, effective testing for PEDs will be the first sign that the league is really serious about player safety.

• I like Tom Brady. I think he’s a great quarterback. What I don’t like is the media’s over-the-top adulation of him that has almost made it a misdemeanor to question whether he’s the greatest quarterback of all time.

Brady seems to agree with me and might actually be a little embarrassed by the media slobber. Here’s what he told ESPN’s Ian Connor the other day: “I don’t agree with that and I’ll tell you why. I know myself as a player. I’m really a product of what I’ve been around, who I was coached by, what I played against, in an era I played in. I really believe if a lot of people were in my shoes they would accomplish the same kinds of things. So I’ve been fortunate.”

My sentiments exactly.

Thanks, Tom.

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