Murray, 22, will miss Saturday's New Year's Eve game against Montreal. Following that the Pens have their scheduled "bye week," which is a week of no games scheduled to be played, from Jan. 1-7. Murray's status will be updated closer to the end of that stretch.
"We have the five-day break, the bye week. We'll evaluate him coming out of that bye week," head coach Mike Sullivan said.
Murray suffered the injury late in the second period of Pittsburgh's 3-2 win against the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday night. Murray was replaced by Marc-Andre Fleury, who stopped all 19 shots in the final frame to pick up the victory.
"I thought he was really good last night in the third period under tough circumstances," Sullivan said. "Coming in for the third period after sitting on the bench for the first two is not an easy thing for a goaltender. I thought he did a great job."
With the credited victory against Carolina, Fleury improved to 5-0-1 in his past 6 decisions.
"He's been really sharp," Sullivan said. "He's tracking the puck well. He's controlling his rebounds. I think he's playing a quieter game in there. He's been really good for us."
Fleury also opened the season with 9 straight starts while Murray recovered from a broken hand suffered in the World Cup of Hockey in September. It is these circumstances that make the Pens feel blessed they have two high-quality goaltenders.
"In times like this we're fortunate that we have two guys that are as capable as these two guys are," Sullivan said. "We believe we have two No. 1 goaltenders. We've tried to manage the games in such a way that we keep them both in it. I think both of them have responded really well. I'm sure they both would like the net more than they're getting it. That's because they're competitive guys. That's a nice challenge to have as a coaching staff."
