On December 15, 2015, Conor Sheary and Matt Murray hopped into a car in Wilkes-Barre for a six-hour drive to Boston to meet the Penguins for a game the next night.
Good friends and roommates on the road who turned pro at the same time, they were about to make their NHL debuts together. There’s no way they could have imagined what the next 13 months would hold.
A Stanley Cup championship. Great personal success. And on Sunday afternoon, they looked like two of the best players in the world at their positions.
Sheary scored twice and Murray made 44 saves as the Penguins handled the Boston Bruins, 5-1, at PPG Paints Arena.
“We’re still roommates on the road for road trips. He’s a really good friend. We’ve kind of grown up together,” Murray said. “It’s really exciting for a guy like me to watch a good friend like that do what he’s doing. It doesn’t surprise me whatsoever, just because I know what he’s capable of, but it’s fun to be on this ride with him for sure.”
Sheary has scored two goals in three of his last four games. Only four left wings in the league have more goals than Sheary’s 17 this season.
“I’m not going to sit here and suggest to you that I thought he’d have 17 goals halfway through the season, but I knew he could play in this league and I felt strongly that he could be a solid player at the NHL level,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “I think his game is just growing by the day.”
Sheary scored in each of the two offensive bursts the Penguins unleashed in the game.
In the first 10 minutes of the second period, his line struck twice to give the Penguins a 2-0 lead.
First, Bryan Rust finished a two-on-one with Sidney Crosby. Later, Sheary scored from the right post out of a net-front scrum.
In the first five minutes of the third period, the Penguins scored three times to turn the game into a rout.
Chad Ruhwedel took a shot from the right point that Patric Hornqvist collected in front and backhanded into the goal. Sheary buried another shot from the right post off a Rust feed. Crosby took a pass from Phil Kessel alone in front and steered in a shot on the power play.
Sheary, Crosby and Rust have combined for 14 goals and 35 points in their last 10 games.
“It’s going better than I expected at this point,” Sheary said. “I think it’s a mixture of a lot of things, the way our team’s been playing and the way our line has been clicking right now. These streaks usually don’t last, so I’m going to enjoy it while it’s here.”
In between the offensive outbursts, the Penguins weathered quite a storm.
With 6:26 left in the first period, play was stopped to repair a problem with the ice near the door to the Penguins runway. The repairs took quite some time, so the teams went to their locker rooms for an early intermission.
When the teams returned, they played the time remaining in the first period, took a 60-second break, switched ends, then went on with the second period.
During that stretch of 26 minutes or so, the Bruins dominated play, taking a 31-13 advantage in shots and 51-17 edge in shot attempts.
That’s when Murray was at his best. A save he made on a David Backes backhand breakaway attempt late in the second proved to be a critical moment in the game.
“He puts a pretty good move on, too. I wasn’t really expecting that from him,” Murray said. “He went backhand pretty early, and I just barely got a piece of it with the top of my blocker and it went out of play. I got a little bit lucky on that one.”

RESULTS
Nashville 4 Minnesota 2
Chicago 4 Vancouver 2
Philadelphia 3 NY Islanders 2 (OT)
Columbus 7 Ottawa 6 (OT)
Pittsburgh 5 Boston 1
NY Rangers 1 Detroit 0 (OT)