PITTSBURGH (AP) Matt Murray doesn’t keep track of the numbers http://www.officialbluejackets.com/authentic-adidas-zach-werenski-jersey , which makes it easier for the Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender to not get caught up in them.His goals-against average? No clue. Save percentage? Nope. Pittsburgh’s record during an occasionally uneven regular season for the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions? Give Murray a phone and he’ll probably be able to look it up but otherwise he’s just guessing.”For a goalie, it’s not based on how many goals you let in or how many goals get past you or don’t or how many saves you make,” Murray said. ”It’s not about that. It’s about how you feel.”And despite a physically and personally draining six months that included multiple extended absences because of injuries and the loss of his father Jim in January, the 23-year-old insists he’ll be ready when the Penguins open the first round of the playoffs against Philadelphia on Wednesday night.”I still pinch myself every day I get to be a part of something like this,” Murray said. ”It’s so exciting. It’s like Christmas.”Even if Murray’s first full season as Pittsburgh’s firmly established No. 1 goalie hardly felt like a holiday at times. He missed two weeks in November with a lower-body injury.A concussion suffered after taking a shot off the mask in practice in February cost him another three weeks. He took a leave to be with his family following his father’s death, but returned eager to get back to the rink that he’s long considered a sanctuary.Murray ended up starting just 45 games and appearing in only 49, the fewest by the Penguins’ top goaltender in a decade. His goals-against average ticked up (2.92) and his save percentage ticked down (.907), both the worst marks of his brief three-year career.Yet the numbers don’t take into account the occasionally iffy play in front of him, particularly a penalty kill that finished a middling 17th in the NHL.Yet it’s not the missed backcheck or the inability to get a clear that people notice. It’s when the puck goes in the net.It’s also, however Authentic Alexander Radulov Jersey , why Murray declines to get caught up in his stats. Feel free to point them out. Just don’t be offended when he deletes them immediately. The only shot that matters isn’t the last one, but the next one.”Every single play, every single shift, every single time somebody touches the puck, everything resets,” he said. ”What happened before doesn’t matter unless you allow it to.”Something Murray rarely does, part of his preternatural maturity that led the Penguins to make the difficult but necessary decision to leave Marc-Andre Fleury – the winningest goaltender in franchise history and a wildly popular figure both in the dressing room and the city – exposed to Vegas last summer in the expansion draft.Fleury and Murray took a potentially volatile situation in the spring of 2016 and turned it into part of the foundation that helped the Penguins become the first team in nearly 20 years to win back-to-back Cups.Sending Fleury to the Golden Knights meant Murray entered this season without the specter of Fleury waiting in the wings should he falter. At times over the winter Murray flip-flopped between dazzling and dull, kind of like his team.Yet Murray just shrugged his shoulders when asked if he’s worried about his play or staying healthy. He has no control over the latter – there are no guarantees when you make a living willfully putting yourself in front of a piece of rubber hurtling at you at various speeds from various angles – and he’s not concerned about the former.Penguins coach Mike Sullivan has long placed value on Murray’s ability to not get overwhelmed by the stakes.There’s a reason Sullivan turned to Murray at every opportunity in the 2016 playoffs – when the then-21-year-old took over after Fleury was diagnosed with a concussion on the eve of the postseason – and again last spring even though Fleury played brilliantly at times while filling in after Murray sustained a lower-body injury during warmups before Game 1 of Pittsburgh’s first-round series against Columbus.Murray returned and after a wobble in the middle of the 2017 Stanley Cup Final against Nashville, held the Predators scoreless in Games 5 and 6 . In the giddy aftermath, Fleury passed the Cup to Murray Ben Bishop Jersey , in many ways a literal passing of the torch from one generation to the next.There will be no debating this time around for the Penguins as they chase history. While Casey DeSmith picked up his first career shutout in the regular-season finale against Ottawa last Friday, Pittsburgh’s attempt to become the first team since the New York Islanders of the early 1980s to capture three consecutive Cups will depend largely on Murray.And for all his downplaying of the numbers, Murray is well aware of what having his name on the Cup for a third time in as many years would mean to both himself and the rest of Pittsburgh’s superstar-laden roster.”We know what’s in front of us,” Murray said. ”We know the opportunity is there for the taking. We’re here and now everything resets. For sure obviously we know what’s at stake.”— NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Nashville Predators‘ sizzling 13-3 start to the season is a distant memory. The defending Presidents Trophy winners have lost three straight and seven of the last 11 on their home ice called Smashville.Part of the problem is only the top line is scoring with any regularity.It’s enough to possibly force general manager David Poile into another big move before the NHL trade deadline Feb. 25. Fans are lighting up social media wanting something to change to snap the Predators out of struggles that have dropped them to eighth overall in the league standings. After winning the Central Division a year ago, Nashville is second with 71 points — four behind Winnipeg.Goalie Pekka Rinne believes the losses could possibly help the Predators in the long run.“I feel like everybody feels the urgency and desperation …,” Rinne said Wednesday. “I mean you look at the standings and we still up there, but you don’t want to feel comfortable in our division. We just got to play better. That’s the bottom line. Get results …, and individually we all need to be just consistent, myself included http://www.officialstarsproonline.com/authentic-adidas-brett-ritchie-jersey , but it’s going to come. And hopefully we can look back in a little bit and … (see) that we grew from it and we learned from it.”The Predators dropped their third straight game Tuesday night 3-2 to Detroit , which came in next to last in the NHL in points. Coach Peter Laviolette put them through practice Wednesday working on a few issues, like a power play that has produced just three goals in 49 opportunities over the past 14 games. Nashville also has allowed the first goal in 31 of its 59 games.Still, Laviolette said he liked how the Predators played their last couple games with a 5-4 overtime loss to St. Louis on Sunday followed by the loss to Detroit.“There’s 10 different things that could’ve helped us or made us better,” Laviolette said. “It could’ve been a face-off, it could’ve been a power-play, a penalty kill, a better third period. An opportunity that goes in the net instead of not going in the net. There’s a bunch of little things I think that can happen. … We did a lot of good things in the last two games and the results didn’t come our way.”They could use more production beyond the JOFA line of center Ryan Johansen and Filip Forsberg and Viktor Arvidsson. Johansen leads Nashville with 52 points in 57 games, while Arvidsson leads the team with 25 goals in just 35 games. Forsberg is second with 20 goals in 42 games because of injuries. Arvidsson has been on a tear since returning from a broken thumb scoring 11 goals in 11 games along with an NHL-best 17 goals since Dec. 31.There’s a drop-off after that.Craig Smith, who has not missed a game this season Adam Clendening Jersey Womens , ranks third on the Predators with 16 goals.“It’s a work in progress,” Smith said. “I think we’re doing a lot of the right things. We get a bounce here and there to feel good. But it’s all about the process. Right now we like the way we work, we like the way, I guess the details of the game we’re doing a lot of the right things.”Nashville has 23 games left, starting Thursday night hosting Montreal. The Predators lead third-place Dallas by eight points in the division and know teams like St. Louis and Minnesota are pushing too.“Consistency is something that we need to work on,” Forsberg said. “But at the same time, we’ve seen our highs. If we can keep going, I think we’ll be fine.”