hes been pretty reliable for us when healthy yes buttttt.... this dude in four seasons has played 38 games as a season high..... and he's been brilliant in some games and godawful in a few. a 911 isn't great. Its meh. And then add on top you're paying 4.5M for a dude who is injured a LOT it's a no brainer that he's not the best use of cap dollars.
I'm not so sure it's great if he's healthy for the playoffs. I don't trust a goalie who has barely seen game action to just turn it on when the games are at their highest intensity. I would continue to roll with sammy.
For the record, he's 22nd in goalie cap hit and 23rd in total GSAx, so regardless of game number, I think the perception of the overall value we've gotten for his cap expenditure has been skewed by the amazing value we're getting out of Samsonov. You can do a lot, lot, lot worse with goalies, and Murray brings a playoff history on top of that that a lot of other goalies do not.
We've got a pretty great team and made two big deadline additions even with his cap on the books, and given how our past few playoff series have gone, it's mind-boggling to me that people can't recognize the value of Murray. Depending on how the last third of the season goes, I may start Samsonov in the playoffs too, but even in that case, for the first time in the Matthews era, we actually have somebody to turn to if our starter isn't playing well or gets injured, and I value that more than most deadline additions we could make. Add on top that he has a history of not only starting in the playoffs, but winning in the playoffs, and maybe more importantly, coming up clutch in the critical, high-pressure moments that our goalies have horrifically failed in over the past half-decade.
In the offseason, we may have better ways to allocate our money, and a bit more confidence in Samsonov moving forward as a starter, so maybe we move on from him, but he's not going anywhere this year, so instead of pretending for some reason like he's going to be injured forever and he sucks, let's appreciate having two goalies providing the team positive impact for the first time in the Matthews era, and cheer him on to get healthy and help us win.