Murashov makes Penguins NHL case after stellar AHL playoff run
Sergei Murashov turned a hot AHL playoff run into a real NHL argument, stopping 37 of 38 in the series clincher and sharpening Pittsburgh’s future in net.
Sergei Murashov did more than survive the pressure of the Calder Cup Playoffs. He looked like a goalie Pittsburgh can trust now, which is a different conversation entirely for a franchise trying to get younger in net.
That is the real takeaway from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s run against Hershey. Murashov won three of four games in the series, posted a 1.99 goals-against average and a .937 save percentage, then closed it out by stopping 37 of 38 shots in the clinching win. For a Penguins organization still sorting out its goaltending mix, that kind of finish does not read like a prospect box-checking exercise. It reads like a goalie forcing the issue.
The Penguins already had evidence before the playoffs that Murashov belonged on the radar. He made his NHL debut for Pittsburgh against the Los Angeles Kings on Nov. 9, 2025, turning aside 24 of 27 shots in a 3-2 loss. At 21 years and 222 days old, he was the fifth-youngest Penguins goaltender to debut in the past 25 years. He had also been named AHL Goaltender of the Month for October 2025, after a regular season in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton that included a 12-3 stretch, a team-rookie record 10-game winning streak, and a final line of 24-9-4 with a .919 save percentage in 38 starts.
That matters because NHL-ready for a goalie is not just about athleticism or size. It is about whether the crease stays quiet when the game tightens, whether rebound control holds, and whether the goalie can absorb a heavy shot volume without letting one bad sequence snowball. Murashov answered those questions against Hershey, and he had already shown enough in the regular season that the playoff work now feels less like a surprise than a confirmation.
His path makes the rise even more notable. Pittsburgh drafted Murashov in the fourth round in 2022, brought him over from Yaroslavl, Russia, and watched him move through parts of five seasons in the MHL with Lokomotiv Yaroslavl before advancing through the ECHL with the Wheeling Nailers and into Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. A recommendation from family friend Evgenii Peretrukhin helped nudge him toward North America, and now the trail has reached the NHL conversation in earnest.
Pittsburgh briefly sent Murashov back to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton after an NHL recall when the club changed its goaltending setup, but that only sharpened the depth-chart read. With Tristan Jarry and Arturs Silovs in the mix, Murashov is no longer just a name for the future. His playoff run suggested he is the internal option closest to changing Pittsburgh’s plans in goal, and maybe the one with the cleanest case to force a longer look.
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