Tim Benz: Who cares if Penguins crowd jeers Matt Murray? What matters is how he responds.

In the wake of the derisive cheers aimed at Penguins goaltender Matt Murray Sunday, there was quite a showdown on Pittsburgh sports talk and online.

In the Black corner, you had the “It’s my money. It’s my ticket. I’ll boo if I want” crowd.

In the Gold corner, you had the “I’m a better fan than you because I don’t make fun of the hometown guy” crowd.

A steel-cage match of sports fan sanctimony!

Of course, the media got into it, too.

Any time this debate crops up I go back to Barry Bonds’ struggles in the playoffs. As a young Pirates fan, I loved Bonds.

The player. On the field.

I hated him for his arrogance, attitude and subversiveness off it.

But, as much as I disliked Bonds, I never understood booing him after he’d strike out in the playoffs. How was that going to help his next at-bat?

Based on how poorly he did every NLCS between 1990 and 1992 (.191 avg, 1 HR, 3 RBI), it obviously never did.

My concern isn’t why people are razzing Murray. My concern is how he will handle it.

On the ice, he was great, stopping 35 of 38 shots en route to a 4-3 victory over the Boston Bruins.

However, based on his reaction when asked about the fans during postgame interviews Sunday, there are reasons to wonder about how much he was impacted.

Penguins goalie Matt Murray’s response says everything about what he thought of the crowd reaction at PPG Paints Arena after the Boston Bruins scored two goals in the first two minutes. pic.twitter.com/5dVhaTx27B

— Kevin Gorman (@KGorman_Trib) January 19, 2020

With that clipped “no comment,” he made every comment he needed to make: “I heard it. And it ticks me off.”

Murray often spoke glowingly about how much he learned from his predecessor, Marc-Andre Fleury.

“The Flower” heard his fair share of those catcalls, boos and even cheers when he got pulled from games.

Rewind your dusty memory banks to Game 7 against Montreal in the 2010 playoffs, or the gong show series against Philadelphia in 2012, or when the fanbase was salivating for Tomas Vokoun in the spring of 2013.

Fleury was lit up by these same fans so often in the years between 2010 and 2013, he got booed out of one arena and got harassed in a second one. If he comes back in his 60s to play in a third building as part of a charity game, he’ll probably get jeered to the bench there, too.

Because that’s what hockey fans do. They blame the goalie.

All the time. Every time.

Yet now, Fleury is treated like a king whenever he comes back with the Vegas Golden Knights.

If Murray watched Fleury as closely as he said he did, then Murray better remember how Fleury handled such situations.

In a game like Sunday’s, when the Penguins would win despite a bad goal or two allowed by Fleury, he’d usually laugh at the crowd reaction if asked. And at himself for the bad goals that got in.

If that kind of game wound up in a loss, Fleury usually just blamed himself and did little to let the conversation linger.

Probably knowing that a “no comment” was just as good as saying, “Yeah. I hear it.” Which would lead to the “Fleury is flustered” talk popping up again.

In the early days of training camp after the loss to Boston in the 2013 Eastern Conference Finals, I asked Fleury about how he had been raked over the coals by the fans and if he even wanted to come back to play in Pittsburgh another year.

In his endearing trademark “Franglais” accent he replied, “Of course. I know at times I felt like the fans, they — how do you say that — they ‘throw me at the bus?’ But, it’s just part of playing goalie, you know.

“Is that right? Throw me at …”

“Close enough,” I replied. “You mean, ‘Under the bus’?”

“Right,” Fleury sighed and laughed. “(Expletive deleted). See. Now they can make fun of me for that, too.”

And poof. Like that. The response disarmed the hate.

I know for a fact, internally, Fleury seethed over what he thought was unfair fan response. When he’d lose a 1-0 Game 7 in the playoffs to Dwayne Roloson of Tampa with no Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin on the ice. Or when he was getting outdueled by Henrik Lundqvist two years in a row and the Penguins couldn’t buy a goal with a fistful of hundreds against the New York Rangers.

But it was always taken in stride.

Unfortunately, Murray seemed agitated on Sunday. Really bothered. Maybe because now he’s in Fleury’s position. Now he’s the incumbent goalie who got off to a slow start. He is the one getting pressed by the flavor of the month (Tristan Jarry).

Just like Murray did to Fleury in 2016.

If Murray doesn’t want to comment on the crowd giving him guff for letting in a few bad goals early in a game, he has two choices.

1. Slough it off as Fleury eventually mastered.

2. Never give up another goal the rest of his life. Ever.

I’m not sure what will be easier for Murray to do.