PENGUINS at SENATORS
8 p.m. ET; CBC, TVA Sports, NBCSN
Ottawa leads best-of-7 series 2-1
OTTAWA - Goaltender Matt Murray will make his first start of the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs when the Pittsburgh Penguins play the Ottawa Senators in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Final at Canadian Tire Centre on Friday.
Murray, who helped lead the Penguins to the Stanley Cup last season, was injured during warmups of the Penguins' first playoff game on April 12. Marc-Andre Fleury started that game and played every minute for the Penguins until Murray replaced him 12:52 into the first period of Game 3 on Wednesday after Fleury gave up four goals on nine shots in Ottawa's 5-1 victory. Murray faced 20 shots and gave up one goal.
The Senators will try and extend their home winning streak in the playoffs to five games. They are 5-2 at home.
Here are 5 keys for Game 4:
1. Goalie change
Penguins coach Mike Sullivan was happy with Murray's relief performance in Game 3. It was Murray's first game action since a 7-4 win against the New Jersey Devils on April 6.
"I thought he was really solid in there," Sullivan said. "He's had a lot of practice time here in the last couple of weeks. We feel like we have two guys that are capable of helping this team win."
2. Penguins injuries
Sullivan may opt to use seven defensemen and 11 forwards, as he did in Game 3, because the Penguins are undermanned. Forwards Bryan Rust, Patric Hornqvist and defenseman Justin Schultz are out with upper-body injuries; Sullivan said Thursday forward Tom Kuhnhackl has a lower-body injury; he hasn't played since May 8.
But defenseman Trevor Daley, who returned from a lower-body injury in Game 3, isn't buying injuries as reason the Penguins are down 2-1 in the series.
"There's no excuses," he said. "They [the Senators] have a lot of injuries too, I'm sure. A lot of guys are playing with injuries right now."
3. Shutting down Sidney Crosby
Crosby got his only point of the series when he scored a power-play goal in the third period of Game 3, and the Penguins center has been limited to six shots on goal. Most of the heavy lifting against Crosby has been done by the defense pair of Marc Methot and Erik Karlsson, although Methot feels shutting down the NHL's top regular-season goal scorer is a team effort.
"It takes five guys, for sure," Methot said. "There's no key to it. You've got to work as hard as you can. You take a shift off against a player like him, and he'll find a way to score or set someone up."
After being limited to one goal in each of the first three games, the Penguins need a breakout game from their captain.
4. Senators expect pushback
Ottawa had a 4-0 lead Wednesday before the game was 13 minutes old. The Senators are expecting a big start from the Penguins in Game 4 and know they have to be prepared.
"We expect them to come out with their best game of the series so we've got to raise our level of play to a level that we know we're capable of," defenseman Dion Phaneuf said. "We know that they are going to come with a push, and we've got to push also."
5. Ottawa's puck management
Coach Guy Boucher said the Senators gave the puck away too much, particularly breaking out of their zone, in their 1-0 loss in Game 2. They fixed that in Game 3, and it will be a priority again in Game 4.
"You always want to have a good start, but for me a good start is you don't give the opponent freebies and you manage the puck well," Boucher said. "The only thing we focused on [in Game 3] was managing the puck better on our breakouts and our zone entries, and going to the net more. That's it. We didn't change anything else."
One thing that was different was the faceoff advantage. Ottawa was 37-17 (65 percent) on faceoffs in Game 3 after the Penguins were 37-23 (62 percent) in Game 2
Penguins projected lineup
Jake Guentzel -- Sidney Crosby -- Conor Sheary
Chris Kunitz -- Evgeni Malkin -- Phil Kessel
Carl Hagelin -- Nick Bonino -- Scott Wilson
Olli Maatta -- Trevor Daley
Matt Murray
Marc-Andre Fleury
Scratched: None
Injured: Bryan Rust (upper body), Justin Schultz (upper body), Patric Hornqvist (upper body), Tom Kuhnhackl (lower body), Kris Letang (neck)
Senators projected lineup
Clarke MacArthur -- Derick Brassard -- Bobby Ryan
Mike Hoffman -- Kyle Turris -- Alexandre Burrows
Zack Smith -- Jean-Gabriel Pageau -- Mark Stone
Viktor Stalberg -- Tom Pyatt -- Ryan Dzingel
Marc Methot -- Erik Karlsson
Dion Phaneuf -- Cody Ceci
Fredrik Claesson -- Chris Wideman
Scratched: Tommy Wingels, Chris Kelly, Ben Harpur, Chris Neil, Colin White, Jyrki Jokipakka, Chris DiDomenico
Injured: Mark Borowiecki (lower body)
Status report
Burrows, who sustained a lower-body injury in Game 3, will be a game-time decision. Borowiecki took part in the optional morning skate and is close to returning from a lower-body injury he sustained in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference First Round against the Boston Bruins, but won't play.
Who's hot
Malkin has a goal and an assist in this series and leads all scorers in the playoffs with 20 points (six goals, 14 assists). … Kessel scored the winning goal in Game 2 and had an assist in Game 3; he has 14 points (six goals, eight assists) in 15 games. … Karlsson had an assist in Game 3 and leads all defensemen in playoff scoring with 14 points (two goals, 12 assists). … Ryan has four points (one goal, three assists) in this series. … Anderson has allowed three goals on 83 shots (.964 save percentage).
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