Penguins Matt Murray is not the Murray you think you know

When I was young I always wondered why an NHL team didn’t hire an 800-pound guy and just lay him in front of the net. The guy wouldn’t need an athletic bone in his body. He would just lay there and the other team wouldn’t be able to score. At the time it seemed like a great idea.

Back in 2016, Jim Rutherford and the Penguins made the right move. They kept two time Stanley Cup winning Matt Murray instead of fan favorite Marc-Andre Fleury. It was a no-brainer.  It was the correct move at the time.  Murray was cheaper, younger, taller, better. Had faced the best, and he had beaten the best of the best. He was simply the best.

While Penguins fans were in their back to back Cup coma, the NHL changed the rules on them. The tall lanky Matt Murray whose pads were so large he used to have trouble fitting through the door to the rink had his pads shrunk. First, the NHL shrunk his leg pads in the middle of last year and then this year they shrunk his chest protector pad. Matt Murray the guy who used to make it look so easy letting his huge equipment do the work, is now vulnerable.

Murray looks small in net.  Murray is finding that he is having to go down low way more than he used to. He lacks the giant leg pads that did the work for him. The gaps in the upper part of the net has exposed his weak glove hand. The giant chest protector that used to cover the majority of the top of the net is no longer there to do the work for him.

Matt Murray’s incredible .930+ playoff save percentage shrunk to a measly .908. His regular season .920’s save percentage shrunk with his pads down to .908.

The NHL’s shrinking of the pads has accomplished its goal. The time of the nonathletic ridiculously large padded goalie has come to an end. The NHL now has the more goals it was looking for at the unintended consequence of making goaltenders that are athletic way more valuable.

There are doubters among us. A few believe the problem is the Penguins’ defense and not the shrinking of the pads.

The unproven yet athletic Casey DeSmith has done a great job behind the same Penguins defense as Murray. Playing most of the Penguins harder games and in net for more games than Murray this season, DeSmith has been able to rack up a .916 save percentage ranking him 11th overall in the NHL. At one point, before Murray came back from injury, before DeSmith received only the back end of the back to back games, Casey DeSmith was #1 in the NHL in save percentage.

Facts are facts. Mike Sullivan has been cherry picking the easy games for Matt Murray. As an example, on a recent road trip the Penguins had back to back games the first night the Penguins were playing the perennial bottom feeder Arizona Coyotes.  The next night the Penguins would be traveling to Vegas to play a well rested Golden Knights team.  Murray got the easy Coyotes game, DeSmith got the tough Golden Knights.

One could also look at the numbers and say Marc-Andre Fleury’s numbers aren’t much better than Murray’s, but at the same time Fleury’s coach isn’t handing him the easy games.  He plays all of them.

Sullivan has finally been questioned why DeSmith was being played the hard games instead of Murray in games like the game against top home scoring team in the NHL the Tampa Bay Lightning the other night. Sullivan said that he was putting in the player(s) who he believed was the best for the job.  You may remember that line from when he used to play Murray over Fleury.

While I have no doubt Murray is trying learn the different style of goaltending he needs to survive in the NHL, it may be what has made him injury prone.  After two years of excuses and injuries the Penguins should be in search of another athletic goalie while 25th ranked goalie Matt Murray finds out if he can become the dominant goalie he once was while using the smaller pads.

There are rumors that Jonathan Quick or Cam Ward may be available for the right price.

*on an odd side note, while I was writing this, the Post-Gazette pulled their article “Casey DeSmith gets surprise start against high-powered Lightning” which had many quotes by Sullivan about how DeSmith was top ten save percentage in the league and others. Weird.