PITTSBURGH (AP) Matt Murray doesn’t keep track of the numbers Eric Staal 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, 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 Womens Jared Spurgeon Jersey , held the Predators scoreless in Games 5 and 6 . In the giddy aftermath, Fleury passed the Cup to Murray, 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.”— NEW YORK (AP) Pressed into action after Flyers starter Michal Neuvirth left with a lower-body injury, rookie goaltender Alex Lyon was confident at Madison Square Garden having played there before for Yale.In his fourth NHL game, Lyon calmly went out over the next 40 minutes and made 25 saves for his first NHL win as the surging Flyers rolled past the slumping Rangers 7-4 on Sunday for their sixth win in seven games.”It was good, fun building, great atmosphere and I can’t give enough credit to the guys,” said the 25-year-old Lyon, who signed with Philadelphia as a free agent in April 2016 after three years at Yale. ”A first NHL win you can talk about for a long time.”Article continues below ...Travis Konecny scored the tiebreaking goal late in the second period to provide the margin of victory. His 15th goal of the season at 15:40 snapped a 4-4 tie.Claude Giroux and Jori Lehtera scored in the third to finish off the win, Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist allowed all seven goals. Giroux’s goal was his 20th of the season and the 200th of his NHL career.Flyers coach Dave Hakstol expressed confidence that possibly having to go with Lyon in games ahead would be a welcome challenge for his club, which is just four points behind Pittsburgh for the Metropolitan Division lead.”We’ve won games as a team. And we’ll continue to do that,” Hakstol said. ”Whoever is in net for us will do a good job.”The Flyers are 22-8-3 since Dec. 4, when they won at Calgary to end a 10-game winless streak. Philadelphia also extended their winning streak on the road to five games.”In the third period, Alex made some big saves for us,” Giroux said. ”He was solid.”The Rangers have lost four straight games. They are 3-11-0 since beating Buffalo at home on Jan. 18 and 6-15-0 since downing the Sabres in the Winter Classic on Jan. 1.”You give up seven Jason Zucker Jersey , it’s not a good feeling,” Lundqvist said. ”I have to be better. Obviously, there are a lot of mistakes.”Sunday marked the 50th anniversary of the first game the Rangers played at the current Madison Square Garden; on Feb. 18, 1968, a 3-1 win over the Flyers.This game started in throwback Rangers-Flyers fashion with a fight at center ice between Rangers forward Pavel Buchnevich and Flyers defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere just 15 seconds into the game.There were two more bouts in the opening 20 minutes – a tussle between Rangers defenseman Tony DeAngelo and Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds and another between veteran fighters Dale Weise of the Flyers and the Rangers’ Cody McLeod.Each team also scored three times in the first.Kevin Hayes gave the Rangers the early lead when he redirected a point shot by defenseman Ryan Sproul past Neuvirth. Hayes’ 14th goal of the season came at 1:30.Philadelphia knotted the score at 4:53 when defenseman Andrew MacDonald scored his fourth of the season.Rick Nash, the subject of trade rumors over the past several weeks, put the Rangers ahead 2-1 with his 18th goal at 10:54 when he tapped a rebound past Neuvirth. The 33-year-old Nash, whose contract expires after this season, is one point shy of 800 for his career.Scott Laughton tied the score again at 12:11 with his 10th goal.The Flyers went ahead at 14:53 when Brandon Manning rifled a shot past Lundqvist after a fine setup by Giroux.The Rangers tied it yet again on a pretty goal by Mats Zuccarello after a slick feed from Peter Holland. The goal was Zuccarello’s 10th and only his second since Dec. 16.Zuccarello, the team’s leading scorer the past two seasons whose name has also surfaced in trade rumors, was not pleased with his team’s effort.”We were playing dumb defensively. We have to be better than that.” the 30-year-old Norwegian forward said. ”It’s really, really hard right now.”Philadelphia went ahead 4-3 at 2:01 of the second on a goal by rookie Nolan Patrick, his sixth.New York tied it at 4 when Holland scored his first of the season and first as a Ranger at 5:47.The matchup was the second of four between the teams this season. The Rangers won the previous meeting, 5-1 at the Garden on Jan. 16.The Rangers have been in a freefall since early January. Now they face games without playoff-race meaning as the season winds down. That would be a first for the 35-year-old Lundqvist, who has made the postseason every year but one during his career that began in 2005-06. That was in 2010 when the Rangers missed out on the last day of the season in a shootout loss at Philadelphia.”It’s terrible, absolutely terrible” he said of his mindset amid the ongoing slump. ”You live for this.”NOTES: The teams meet in Philadelphia on March 22 and in the season finale April 7. … The Rangers continued to be without forward Chris Kreider who has missed 23 games with a blood clot in his right arm and injured defensemen Kevin Shattenkirk, Marc Staal and Ryan McDonagh. … The Flyers scratched forward Taylor Leier and defenseman Mark Alt.UP NEXT:Rangers: visit Montreal on Thursday.Flyers: host Montreal on Tuesday.—