- Mar 4, 2011
- 26,354
- 18,343
You're probably saving about $3 million or more if Murray wants a big cap hit, which is significant enough where you have to consider the option. You'd be looking at someone like Markstrom, Greiss or Halak in free agency to be a platoon goalie with Jarry, and I can't imagine that would cost much more than $5 million.
Make that games played requirement 40 games and Murray falls to 8th, because Bishop (46 games), Lehner (46 games), Greiss (43 games), Khudobin (41 games) and Halak (40 games) all had a save% better than Murray's .919 last year and played in that many games. Make it 30 games and you add Campbell and Binnington. So yes, I will say that's a cherrypicked size
I also don't think just mentioning a goalie's rank is that accurate. Murray is 3rd in the sample you're looking at, but the difference between #2 and #3 is the same as the difference between #3 and #12. If you lower the games played requirements to 45, the difference between Bishop (#1) and Murray (#8) is the same as the difference between Murray and Craig Anderson (#32). Saying "Murray is essentially tied in save% with Price, Rinne, Andersen and Gibson" is a more accurate representation than "Murray is 3rd in save% among players with 50 or more starts".
I think Murray falls between the 9th best and 12th best goalie in the NHL. I think Bobrovsky, Price, Vasilevskiy, Gibson, Rask, Rinne, Bishop and Andersen (he's Murray if Murray had 5 years of what he was last year) are all definitely better, and I think Fleury, Holtby, Murray and Dubnyk (super underrated IMO) fall in the 9-12 range. To me, that is not elite. Murray may have been better Bobrovsky, Price or Rinne in any given season, but he's not established as being a better goalie. Murray is above average, but he's like 10th best in the league, not "let's give him a blank check" good.
I just think you're not gaining much with that three million saved. Not enough to risk going from having a good goalie to a worse one. There's no guarantee we'd even get the goalie we want in FA anyways. Why risk it? So we can do....what? Spend three million on some halfway decent FA? If we're lucky we get a Tanev. If we're not, we get a Jack Johnson. I like Tanev a lot but not enough to risk losing Matt Murray and going to a goalie who may be worse or may not sign with us at all.
You're also forgetting that Murray is young at only 25 years old. His best days are (possibly) ahead of him. Markstrom is already almost 30.