Whitney I mean, just think about Pittsburgh’s goaltending situation. That alone is interesting. You have a 21-year-old kid in Matt Murray starting because of Fleury’s concussion, but Fleury’s ready to go now. What’s Fleury doing during this whole run? He’s beaming. He’s smiling and congratulating Murray, and it’s not fake. You can tell. He’s genuinely happy for him. Let me tell you something: That’s rare.
Rupp That’s very rare. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player more beloved in the NHL than Marc-Andre Fleury. I seriously have never heard a single bad word said about him. You ask any guy in the league and they’ll say, “Love him.”
Murray is obviously extremely talented. His AHL numbers were unbelievable. He went 301 minutes without a goal scored on him in Wilkes-Barre. That’s the AHL record, and he did it as a rookie. That’s just stupid. It doesn’t even make sense. This is pro hockey. It’s not supposed to happen.
But all that talent aside, he’s 21 years old. He gets handed the reins in the playoffs and he’s got to go against Henrik Lundqvist. Then he’s got to go against Braden Holtby, a guy who just tied Marty Brodeur’s regular-season wins record.
Look, you can have all the talent in the world. But if Flower was putting on a show of being unhappy? Forget about it.
Whitney Yeah, Murray would have been a mess. You can’t handle the pressure of the playoffs if a guy of that stature is looking over your shoulder.
Rupp We’ve all seen that in the league. Goalies want the net. They just do. If Flower had been coming off the ice, slamming his helmet down at his locker, pouting, talking crap to the goalie coaches, it would’ve been a different story. But he didn’t. Does Flower want to be in net? Of course he does. Are you kidding me? But he’s supporting this kid genuinely.
That speaks speaks volumes about him as a human being. Flower is going to be in the Hall of Fame some day. I don’t think a lot of goalies in his position, with the swagger his name carries, would be as supportive.
Whitney No way. They’d be like, “Hey, thanks for the help kid, but this is my net,” and then there would be this weird tension that the whole team would feel.
In which the Penguins are salty as fuck, CBJ said they’d edit their wikipedia article and actually did it, and the Dallas Stars would just really like to be included.
Steel Phoenix Studios 