It appears that the answer to whether Stuart Skinner is hurt or injured is that he was indeed injured. Hurt is an inconvenience, something you can play through. Injured is when time off is needed to make it right. Skinner missed his planned start on Sunday against the Panthers. The Pittsburgh Penguins are taking precautions with his injury and have made a roster move today.
Sergei Murashov will be with the big club for the time being. How long? Nothing about Skinner’s injury has been communicated officially yet. However, he was hit with a puck near his eye
The Penguins would have had Murashov up with the team against Florida, but he was unable to arrive in time to dress, thus Taylor Gauthier, of the Wheeling Nailers, got to live out a dream of being in the NHL on Sunday.
On the surface it doesn’t appear like Skinner will be out of action for a long time. He was an active participant today at practice along with Murashov and Arturs Silovs
Here is what he had to say about the incident:
“I was like, I’m good, no problem. Then I woke up, and it kind of closed on me. To be honest, I just thought (it would be better for the) team if I didn’t play. It’s not the time for me to be too proud and try to play without being able to see a little bit to my left.”
I feel great. I feel like I have 100% vision. Eyes moving well, I can see in my peripheral, did some 2-on-1’s and tested that out. So yeah, everything feels really good.”
The Baby Penguins don’t play until Thursday themselves so this might just be a nice excuse to get Sergei Murashov some time with NHL shooters at practice. It may not lead to any game action. That said, we don’t know Skinner’s timeline.
Current goaltending situation
The current Penguins goaltending situation is not great. Even if Skinner was not dinged up the level of play the Penguins have been receiving in net is not good enough. Since March, the Penguins have received goaltending results near the bottom of the league.
In all situations the Penguins have the 3rd worst save percentage at .863. At 5v5 it is 5th worst at .888.
Since March 1st there are 44 goalies who have played 400 minutes in all-situations. Silovs is 39th at .867 and Skinner is 29th at .881. As far as goals saved above average (GSAA) Skinner is 31st at -3.72 and Silovs is 39th at -6.41 per Natural Stat Trick
During this same time period the Penguins lead the NHL in goals scored with 80, seven better than the second place New York Rangers at 73. The Penguins have been outscoring their goaltending issues at the moment and it isn’t something that I feel great about heading into the playoffs when teams lock in.
When looking at the entire season here are how things have shaken out for the Penguins goaltenders
| Player | TOI | Save % | HDSV% | GSAA |
| Stuart Skinner | 2762:48 | .888 | .804 | -.897 |
| Arturs Silovs | 2170:36 | .890 | .787 | -.562 |
| Sergei Murashov | 281:16 | .897 | .875 | 0.47 |
Skinner’s numbers are from both Edmonton and Pittsburgh. His Edmonton save percentage (.891) is actually better than his Pittsburgh (.886) one.
I very much realize that Murashov’s sample is not large enough to draw conclusions. However, it is worth comparing that he has not been materially worse than his other Penguins goaltenders in his limited action. He has been fine, dare I say league average, because the league average save percentage this season is .896. In fact, this year’s average save percentage is at a 30 year low.
Even at a 30 year low both of the Penguins regular NHL starters are below the threshold of league average.
In the AHL, among all qualifying goaltenders (goalies with 1,320 minutes played), the average save percentage this season is at .902. Sergei Murashov currently has the second best save percentage in the league at .922.
Which leads me to the following opinion…
No need to baby Murashov
Personally, I am in the camp where I would actually like to throw Sergei Murashov another NHL game before the regular season ends. The Penguins are pretty much a lock for the postseason at 99.4% on Moneypuck. They have been winning games in spite of their goaltending. I don’t think Murashov is going to give them significantly less than what Arturs Silovs has been giving them, for example.
There are going to be people who are apprehensive about Murashov playing in NHL because it might “ruin his development”. I do not subscribe to this, in fact, if a few crummy starts ruins his developement… welp, I have bad news about his development.
I think teams can slow play the development of their goaltending prospects. You burn through their RFA years without getting a lot of game action when the costs are way down for the team. Then you end up ponying up on the UFA deals and pay for past performance. There’s an opportunity for teams to get an advantage on their competition by taking more of a risk on the timeline. Pittsburgh is in a position to do this because I don’t believe either NHL goaltender they have rostered is a long term solution to the position.
Furthermore, neither of them are playing well at the moment (Skinner is dealing with the eye injury) with the playoffs around the corner. If the Penguins are serious about making any kind of noise in the playoffs they need to put the person in net who is going to give them the best chance to succeed regardless of their tenure in the league or where they are in their development process.
I recall a goalie in 2015-16 with only 13 NHL regular season games to his name that wound up being the starting goaltender for the Stanley Cup winning Penguins.
I am not suggesting the Penguins should be in the process of making Sergei Murashov their playoff goalie. What I am saying is that giving him some NHL action before the postseason might not be a terrible thing considering that neither Penguins goalie is playing at an acceptable level. You never know what can happen in the crease during the playoffs. We as fans found out the hard way a few years back that sometimes you’re stuck playing Louis Domingue in meaningful games.
Giving Murashov a taste of action now at the end of the regular season isn’t going to hurt anything. It won’t hurt the team or his overall development. In a situation like this it is likelier to luck your way into an unknown commodity going on a heater than it is to destroy their development. Goalies with small samples going on heaters is something we’ve seen happen in this league during the playoffs often enough to know it is a feasible outcome.
The thing about being second place and heading to the playoffs is that you have to act like a second place team heading into the playoffs. You can’t rule out anything to make your team better.
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