home jobs contact us
Our Clients:
Browse by Sport
Find us on ASAP sports on Facebook ASAP sports on Twitter
ASAP Sports RSS Subscribe to RSS
Click to go to
Asaptext.com
ASAPtext.com
ASAP Sports e-Brochure View our
e-Brochure

NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINAL: PENGUINS VS SENATORS


May 19, 2017


Matt Murray

Brian Dumoulin


Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - Postgame

Pittsburgh-3, Ottawa-2

Q. Matt, all throughout the playoffs last year, people talked about your calm and poise in pressure situations. Having not played a whole lot in the last six weeks, did that make it any different for you in terms of did you feel that pressure maybe more or less tonight?
MATT MURRAY: Not really, to be honest. I just tried to approach it like any other game. I've had to come back from injury before this year, and basically tried not to think about it, just kind of jump in and just play. So that was kind of my focus.

And the team made it pretty easy game for me. They did a really good job and blocked a lot of shots, especially late. So really good overall team effort.

Q. Brian, I know you've said this year you haven't had pucks really go in off skates for you. What did it feel like to have one go in off a skate for you? Could you walk us through what happened there.
BRIAN DUMOULIN: Yeah, it felt good to be on the other end of those. It's a fortunate bounce. I forgot who came out in the lane, but he did a good job. I was just trying to put a puck back door and hope for some luck. Fortunately, it went in off Dion's skate.

Q. For Brian, what did you see from your penalty killing unit and how they kept the Senators from even setting up at times on some of those chances?
BRIAN DUMOULIN: Yeah, I thought our forwards did a good job off the ice. They were pressuring really hard and disrupting the breakout, getting their timing off a little bit. I mean, Murray did a good job of seeing the puck and not letting them get second opportunities. We had good clears, and those penalty kills are huge for us.

Q. Brian, just between Olli's goal and Chad going down, what was the chatter like among the defensemen? Were you guys feeling pretty good about the group or a little bit about we have to go through this again?
BRIAN DUMOULIN: Yeah, any time a D-man goes down, it seems like we come together. It seems like the forwards make that extra effort to come back and get the line and make it easier for us to change. I mean, it's not easy playing with five "D," but we've done it before. I think we did a good job of keeping our shift short and just trying to get pucks out and keep the game simple.

Q. Matt, what's the biggest challenge as a goalie to jump into a playoff run at this point?
MATT MURRAY: I don't know what the biggest challenge is. I think there's a lot of challenges. It's not an easy thing to do. But like I said before, all I can really do is kind of jump in and try not to think about it. Just try and play with the flow of the game and kind of let yourself get lost in the game a little bit.

I thought I did a pretty good job of that tonight. There's a lot of ways I could have been a lot better I thought, but all together felt good about the game.

And like I said, the guys played unbelievably tonight. I think it was when we needed it the most. We really needed a win here and a good bounceback game, and that's what we had.

Q. Matt, did you and Marc-Andre talk at all about the decision? Or is that just not spoken about? You just kind of prepare for the game together?
MATT MURRAY: Yeah, we've been going through this for a while now, and we both know the drill. Whoever's not in there is there to support the other. We've done a really good job of that here since we've been playing together. So I think we have a really good relationship in that way. We just kept things light this morning when we were at morning skate, and I think that helped me a lot with keeping the nerves down and stuff like that.

And Flower is always good for that, knowing when to joke around and when to say the right thing. I've said it all along, he's been great with me in that regard, and I owe a lot to him for sure.

Q. Matt, just wondering what you thought of your rebound control tonight. Looked pretty good.
MATT MURRAY: Okay. It was good at times, bad at times. That's something that will come back with time, I think. It was pretty good in the first period. I thought I was absorbing a lot. In the third, I put a couple out in the scoring area, which wasn't good, but these guys were there to kind of dive in front and block them. Yeah, I mean, kudos to the defensemen and the forwards for blocking a lot of shots tonight.

Q. Matt, can you talk about what it meant to you that Coach Sullivan turned to you after such a long layoff? And Brian, what kind of message did that send to the rest of the team?
MATT MURRAY: Yeah, it's always a big boost when your coach has the confidence in you to play a game like this, especially after so long. So I really appreciate the confidence that he put in me and really just tried to put my best game on the ice and honestly pay him back for his decision and just try to do my best to give the team a chance to win. And the team played, like I said, unbelievably. Yeah, that's kind of how I went about it.

BRIAN DUMOULIN: I mean, we have confidence in both goalies, obviously. I mean, that makes it easy for us as a team to not worry about that decision. Obviously, both our goaltenders are stellar. It's just fun being there and playing in front of both of them no matter who's in the net.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP sports

tech 129
About ASAP SportsFastScripts ArchiveRecent InterviewsCaptioningUpcoming EventsContact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297