Matt Murray Appreciation Thread

[Honour Over Glory]

Was listening to NHL Radio and they, forget who it was, said they don't think Murray is Top 5. Like... what else does the guy have to do besides win Cups?

He has to play for Montreal behind a solid defense, weak offense, and have 2-3 very good seasons in his entire career and then he'll be forever talked about like he was Hasek.

 

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

Was listening to NHL Radio and they, forget who it was, said they don't think Murray is Top 5. Like... what else does the guy have to do besides win Cups?

Who did they name as their top 5?

 

[WayneSid9987]

Caught this on the twitters tonight:



Muzz is #4 on NHL's top 10 right now.

Price
Holtby
Bobrovsky
Murray
Dubnyk
Quick
Talbot
Lundqvist
Jones
Pekka

Is their list. Pretty cool.

 

[madinsomniac]

Lol id bet the first thing on 3/4ths of yinzers minds when reading that list is " where is MAF?"

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Lol id bet the first thing on 3/4ths of yinzers minds when reading that list is " where is MAF?"

Yeah man, like they act like he was around for 13yrs or something, where they'd get attached and stuff. Ridic. Rite?

 

[ColePens]

Muzz is #4 on NHL's top 10 right now.

Price
Holtby
Bobrovsky
Murray
Dubnyk
Quick
Talbot
Lundqvist
Jones
Pekka

Is their list. Pretty cool.

My tiny issue, and it's very small, is that they push guys aside based on results. Personally I think tier system is better, but you are looking at missing guys who WOULD have been there if their team was successful (Crawford, Vasi, Bish, etc). And Pekka is only in there because the result Nashville had last year. Otherwise, if Chicago wins that series... Crawford immediately gets the nod.

But there are A LOT of tier 2/3 goalies. Not so many tier 1 right now.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Muzz is #4 on NHL's top 10 right now.

Price
Holtby
Bobrovsky
Murray
Dubnyk
Quick
Talbot
Lundqvist
Jones
Pekka

Is their list. Pretty cool.

I'd rank Rask ahead of at least 2 guys on that list (Jones and Rinne), and maybe Dubnyk and Talbot.

 

[Dying Alive]

I find it difficult to rank goalies. I wouldn't put Bobrovsky anywhere near the top five even though he's a Vezina winner because he's been abysmal in the playoffs over his career. His BEST playoff save % is MAF's career average (.908) and people drag MAF like he's the worst playoff goalie ever to put on skates. And then people say "well, Bob has a small sample size." Yeah, there's a reason for that. He sucks out loud once the playoffs start and can't win a series to save his life.

On the other hand, Craig Anderson has put up .929 in the playoffs over his career and rarely gets mentioned as a top goaltender.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Yeah it's rather ridiculous people don't look at the playoff #'s when judging most players really, it's when you really have to rise above the rest and prove you're more than ready to be at your best when your best is required every damn game and there isn't a race of 82 games to make it, it's you lose 4 and you're out. Which is far more important for goalies. Yeah a larger body of work is important for this as well, Murray had 1yr where he was solid in the playoffs, then it was up to him to prove he is able to do it again, the guy was phenomenal this past year when he was back from his injury, to me that seals the deal that he's not just #4 right now, he's higher up. I mean is Lundqvist just up there because of the years he's been in the league? The guy has had his own meltdowns in the playoffs and he plays for a team that collapses and shelters him as much as possible.

It's why I don't rank Lundqvist, Bobs, etc up there. Not even Price, Price for whatever reason has the most selective career years memory loss when people talk about him, they completely ignore the years where Halak was almost kept over him, etc.

Murray gets downplayed a lot because of the team he's on, but then people tell us the Penguins have a horrible defense, so it's like, which is it? Is he very good or is he just sheltered by that supposedly terrible defense? It's hilarious, no other goalie gets that, I heard enough of that when we had MAF as the #1, then it's still the bs excuse with Murray.

 

[PensandCaps]

I don't use playoff numbers to evaluate players because you're using small sample sizes.

 

[Fordy]

Yeah man, like they act like he was around for 13yrs or something, where they'd get attached and stuff. Ridic. Rite?

didn't realize the nhl top 10 goalie rankings used years spent playing for the penguins as such an influential metric

 

[Dying Alive]

I don't use playoff numbers to evaluate players because you're using small sample sizes.

Are you really though? Bob has been on a team that has made the playoffs 4 times. He's never been above a .908. Even if you throw out the year he only played one game and had a .722 sv% in it, his numbers are .877, .908, and .882. That may be a small sample size overall but it's a clear pattern of sub-standard play in the playoffs. Small sample size is fine when you're going solely by stats but when combined with the eye test it changes things a bit. Bob wasn't shelled in the playoffs this year, he stunk. He gave up a lot of bad goals.

Or to look at it another way, NHL has Bob ranked #3 on their list. The rest of the top ten below him are Murray, Dubnyk, Quick, Talbot, Lundqvist, Jones, and Rinne. If you had to play a SCF game 7, would you be willing to take Bob over any of those guys below him and give him the benefit of the doubt of a small sample size? I wouldn't. To me that's the easiest way to rank them.

 

[PensandCaps]

Are you really though? Bob has been on a team that has made the playoffs 4 times. He's never been above a .908. Even if you throw out the year he only played one game and had a .722 sv% in it, his numbers are .877, .908, and .882. That may be a small sample size overall but it's a clear pattern of sub-standard play in the playoffs. Small sample size is fine when you're going solely by stats but when combined with the eye test it changes things a bit. Bob wasn't shelled in the playoffs this year, he stunk. He gave up a lot of bad goals.

Or to look at it another way, NHL has Bob ranked #3 on their list. The rest of the top ten below him are Murray, Dubnyk, Quick, Talbot, Lundqvist, Jones, and Rinne. If you had to play a SCF game 7, would you be willing to take Bob over any of those guys below him and give him the benefit of the doubt of a small sample size? I wouldn't. To me that's the easiest way to rank them.

When you play 7 game samples, your stats can look horrible. I don't think players just get worse come playoff time. BOB is better than them, just got unlucky in the playoffs.

 

[CrosbyMalkin]

When you play 7 game samples, your stats can look horrible. I don't think players just get worse come playoff time. BOB is better than them, just got unlucky in the playoffs.

That is a big assumption calling it just luck. I can't disagree more as a past athlete and a coach for years i can say it is a big difference come playoff time. Some people raise their game when the pressure during the important games comes and others have nerves that make them underperform during those situations. Calling it luck makes me wonder if you ever had been an athlete yourself. I have taken many graduate level classes in sports psychology and I can tell your luck theory is far from correct.

Murray is clutch in the big games and I would take him in a must win playoff game over Bobrovsky any day and it would not be a close decision. You can call it luck but one goalie has 4 years of never performing at a high playoff level and the other is 6-0 in playoff series and 2-0 in Cup final series while putting up top tier stats to go with those victories.

Personally I would not take any goalie for Murray. Those other 3 in front of him have not won the Cup and I will take the younger, cheaper, playoff proven winner with just as good of stats.

 

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

If there's an argument that Bobrovsky's playoff stats are misleading, I would tend to think the argument is that he always seems to get stuck playing the Pens, and the Pens make a lot of good goalies look like trash.

Well, that and the fact that we're talking about a total of 14 starts over three years, broken down further into a group of three non-consecutive starts over a six-game span and then separate groups of five and six consecutive starts.

I went through Matt Murray's gamelog and found a string of three non-consecutive starts over a six-game span, and separate groups of five and six consecutive starts, in which he did not look particularly good. I didn't do any kind of complicated data analysis to try and find the worst groups of starts that fit this pattern. I just picked the first ones I noticed.

In those 14 starts, Murray put up a SV% of .871 by facing 340 shots and saving 296 of them. Of course, that doesn't really prove anything, but it at least calls into question the value of sampling 14 starts spread over multiple years.

Bob also had to face over 400 shots in his 14 playoff starts.

 

[Speaking Moistly]

If there's an argument that Bobrovsky's playoff stats are misleading, I would tend to think the argument is that he always seems to get stuck playing the Pens, and the Pens make a lot of good goalies look like trash.

This version of the Pens makes goalies look bad frequently. Bobrovsky also got to face death throw Bylsma's team that hated to go near the net and was prone to quitting. In 2014 you'd call him inconsistent in the playoffs but he was just awful this year. His stats were crap but he also looked awful and a lot like Fleury's meltdown play. Even just his Columbus time is bad with 4/11 games being above .90 (36%) and 9 of Murray's 31 starts are below .90 (30%). Nashville was Murray's worst series with 3 games under .90 and we all know how he finished it.

If I were them Bob's ass would be sent to a sports psychologist over the off season because there enough there to worry. Wildly inconsistent or just bad, either way it should be addressed.

 

[tom_servo]

I don't use playoff numbers to evaluate players because you're using small sample sizes.

The Stanley Cup Finals is a small sample size. The game that clinches the Cup is an infinitesimal sample. But they are massive in gravity and significance.

 

[ColePens]

I think playoffs do have to weigh in. That's where everything is on the line. Murray putting back to back SOs in Games 5 and 6, especially his performance in Game 6, really set his first 2 years in stone. 2 Cups with 2 amazing performances and standout games. I think the playoffs have to be taken into consideration but it's difficult to do so as tom_servo said, those sample sizes and be very small.

Maybe the eye test should be included? Because Bobo failed that one bad, too. He looked as bad as Fleury ever did on his really really really bad days.

 

[Gurglesons]

I think playoffs do have to weigh in. That's where everything is on the line. Murray putting back to back SOs in Games 5 and 6, especially his performance in Game 6, really set his first 2 years in stone. 2 Cups with 2 amazing performances and standout games. I think the playoffs have to be taken into consideration but it's difficult to do so as tom_servo said, those sample sizes and be very small.

Maybe the eye test should be included? Because Bobo failed that one bad, too. He looked as bad as Fleury ever did on his really really really bad days.

Murray is all I've ever wanted. So calm. So clutch.

 

[Human]

I think playoffs do have to weigh in. That's where everything is on the line. Murray putting back to back SOs in Games 5 and 6, especially his performance in Game 6, really set his first 2 years in stone. 2 Cups with 2 amazing performances and standout games. I think the playoffs have to be taken into consideration but it's difficult to do so as tom_servo said, those sample sizes and be very small.

Maybe the eye test should be included? Because Bobo failed that one bad, too. He looked as bad as Fleury ever did on his really really really bad days.

yeah, this is just not true. Bob was pretty bad, but I haven't seen him scoring goals on himself MAF style.

MAF is a nice story that has played out great in the end, but his Flyers/Islanders 2012/2013 series are one of a kind bad.

 

[ColePens]

Murray is all I've ever wanted. So calm. So clutch.

We agree on that, for sure!

yeah, this is just not true. Bob was pretty bad, but I haven't seen him scoring goals on himself MAF style.

MAF is a nice story that has played out great in the end, but his Flyers/Islanders 2012/2013 series are one of a kind bad.

Fair enough. Maybe i'm just keeping the last playoff series of bobo in my head the most. He completely collapsed.

 

[end]

I can't stand when people use statistics from a first round loss and try to act as if they reveal more truth about a player than the 82 games before. Thinking that the statistics for a guy who lost two series is really more telling about his ability than the statistics from 200 other games is silly to me. It has all the impact of finding a 5-7 game skid where the team loses at least 4 games and using that and only that as the relevant data for judging a player's talent. Nick Lidstrom had a -4 game. Some 'Perfect Human' he turned out to be rite?

Of course goalies will have bad stats when they lose a hockey series. If the team loses the series and the goalie still has sparkling statistics, it suggests to me the exact opposite of that goalie being elite; it suggests the entire strategy of the team is based on protecting the goalie.

 

[Shaftception]

Nice article on him in the ppg this morning.

Matt Murray opens up about Marc-Andre Fleury, Stanley Cups and his future

At 23, Murray has won two Stanley Cups, but he still thinks it's weird he has Sidney Crosby's number in his phone. He nailed down his dream job, yet he regrets his promotion forced Marc-Andre Fleury's exit. He's a fashion aficionado who wears $4 T-shirts, a Shakespeare enthusiast with only a few college courses under his belt.

 

[Shady Machine]

Really good read. Thanks for linking. Murray is the man.

 

[Ginormousthumbs]

Nice article, but Matt shouldn't feel bad because in 2 years or less, he'll be reunited with his homie.