Murray starts war of words
Ottawa coach and general manager Bryan Murray suggested after Senators practice yesterday that the Penguins manipulated their first-round playoff matchup by purposely losing, 2-0, Sunday at Philadelphia in their regular-season finale.
“I knew what was going on. You guys all know — they wanted to play Ottawa,” Murray said. “That’s fine.
“That was fairly obvious from the drop of the puck.”
The Penguins rested center Sidney Crosby, who missed 28 games in the second half of the season because of a high ankle sprain, and went 0 for 8 on the power play in the shutout loss. If they had won, they would have clinched the top seed in the Eastern Conference and would be playing No. 8 Philadelphia instead of the seventh-seeded Senators.
But the Penguins also stuck with No. 1 goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, used their top special-team units and played their regulars, other than Crosby, extensively. Defenseman Sergei Gonchar played 29:38, his sixth-highest ice time of the season.
“Bryan has coached over 1,000 games in the NHL,” Penguins general manager Ray Shero said.
“He’s got different ways to motivate his team, and this is one of them.”
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