Player Discussion Matt Murray (G) - 4 years, $6.25M AAV

[DJB]

Pascal Leclair, the guy I pretty much bet my reputation on defending lol.

I almost said LeClaire...but I really only recall good LeClaire and injured LeClaire lol

 

[DJB]

Don't recall Murray being really hot. At his best he was saving what had to be saved.

He was pretty hot against us in 2017. I thought the last 3 games he had been really good as well.

But today those two goals were smelly

 

[HSF]

Easy to blame Murray but inconsistency defensively is expected with a young team

20 shots against and countless giveaways in a period won’t fly against a hungry team

 

[aragorn]

Easy to blame Murray but inconsistency defensively is expected with a young team

20 shots against and countless giveaways in a period won’t fly against a hungry team

Agreed, but he has also let in a number of stinkers, Ottawa has to have better goaltending when they plan to contend, not sure if he is their guy yet. He has to be better.

 

[HSF]

Agreed, but he has also let in a number of stinkers, Ottawa has to have better goaltending when they plan to contend, not sure if he is their guy yet. He has to be better.

Only the 2nd goal was questionable

the rest were mostly terrible giveaways in areas of the ice that should not happen at the nhl level

 

[aragorn]

Only the 2nd goal was questionable

the rest were mostly terrible giveaways in areas of the ice that should not happen at the nhl level

Agreed, but he has let in a number of stinkers in other games especially earlier on.

 

[Burrowsaurus]

We didn’t help him tonight. Could have made a couple more saves as he will soon be getting paid like a super star goalie

 

[Burrowsaurus]

Only the 2nd goal was questionable

the rest were mostly terrible giveaways in areas of the ice that should not happen at the nhl level

We don’t need to pay a goalie 28 million for 4 years to let in goals because of terrible giveaways we can put any goalie in net to do that

 

[Dan Patrick]

I'm not too worried about Murray at this point. If his play is still looking below replacement level after next year and a guy like Daccord is pushing to be the starter than I think you can look to move him, and with only a single year (with him only being an expensive backup in year three) remaining it shouldn't be too difficult. At this point our defence has been pretty hit and miss and a ton of our guys are super young (and mistake prone) or not very good so I think if he is still doing the same old in year three of his contract when our defence has added higher skill guys like Sanderson, JBD and likely Thomson then we can re-evaluate.

Look at a guy like Jake Allen who is making 5.75 a year for the next two to backup Carrey Price, I have no problem if Murray is making 6 and backing up another starter (making significantly less than Price) in his final year and it should not affect our ability to sign anyone if Melnyk is serious about spending to the cap.

 

[Hale The Villain]

I'm not too worried about Murray at this point. If his play is still looking below replacement level after next year and a guy like Daccord is pushing to be the starter than I think you can look to move him, and with only a single year (with him only being an expensive backup in year three) remaining it shouldn't be too difficult. At this point our defence has been pretty hit and miss and a ton of our guys are super young (and mistake prone) or not very good so I think if he is still doing the same old in year three of his contract when our defence has added higher skill guys like Sanderson, JBD and likely Thomson then we can re-evaluate.

Look at a guy like Jake Allen who is making 5.75 a year for the next two to backup Carrey Price, I have no problem if Murray is making 6 and backing up another starter (making significantly less than Price) in his final year and it should not affect our ability to sign anyone if Melnyk is serious about spending to the cap.

He makes an average of 7M in salary in the last 3YRs of his deal, and he's got a .884 SV%.

If he doesn't turn it around there's no way a team agrees to take him off our hands. We'll be stuck with him.

Also Allen is making 5.75M over the next two years (2.875M average).

 

[Answer]

Turnovers or not. Some of the goals he let in were just weak. Maybe make 1 big save and that could really give the team some momentum, rather completely deflate them.

 

[aragorn]

One thing is for sure the defence was brutal when Coburn & J. Brown were in there & the defence is still having problems with Brannstrom & Reilly in there. The only defenceman who has been steady since they started playing him has been Zub who continues to be quietly solid in all zones.

 

[Dan Patrick]

He makes an average of 7M in salary in the last 3YRs of his deal, and he's got a .884 SV%.

If he doesn't turn it around there's no way a team agrees to take him off our hands. We'll be stuck with him.

Also Allen is making 5.75M over the next two years (2.875M average).

That's my bad with Allen.

Also, the only average that matters if we are moving on from him is the contract average as that is what affects the cap. 18.75 Million for the next three years should not in any way affect our ability to compete outside of poor play. Even if we held onto him and gave Bath, Norris and Tkachuk huge extensions over that time we likely would still find ourselves millions of dollars under the cap. Our team simply is not salary strapped over the duration of his contract in any way and if another goaltender from our system pushes him out of the way as the starter than all the better.

Murray still shows signs that he can be a dominant goaltender and as our guys mature the team in front of him will get better. If he isn't the goaltender to carry us to the promised land we will still be no where near the end of this groups window to compete and have all avenues available to us to find a goaltender who can.

 

[Xspyrit]

Not very suprising to me that both Price and Murray have similar numbers, both defenses are a bit similar in the way they give up glorious chances and constantly blow up defensive coverage. However, Habs D-men are a lot stronger physically and also have a lot more experience. They're just not mobile and we're just... not very good.

We don’t need to pay a goalie 28 million for 4 years to let in goals because of terrible giveaways we can put any goalie in net to do that

The real number is 25 M$, not 28

But agreed too much money too fast. Problem is if we signed him for "only" 2 years then it's less expensive but he could have then decided to go on the UFA market. Dorion wanted to get a bit of term. I initially remembered as if it was 5.25 AAV which would have been more reasonnable, but was a bit shocked when I realized it was 6.25 AAV. This is in the same mold as Anderson and Condon contracts. Dorion overpay for a goalie once again.

One thing is for sure the defence was brutal when Coburn & J. Brown were in there & the defence is still having problems with Brannstrom & Reilly in there. The only defenceman who has been steady since they started playing him has been Zub who continues to be quietly solid in all zones.

Agreed. Chabot really needs help poor guy. When Zaitsev has a bad game it gets ugly. Gudbranson was back to being bad. Brannstrom has to be sheltered. Hopefully this kinda game becomes a rare occurence because it's really hard to watch. I mean, we have better structure in my beer league lol

 

[Korpse]

He's battling consistency right now, playing behind an inconsistent team. Let him settle in.

 

[ReginKarlssonLehner]

He's battling consistency right now, playing behind an inconsistent team. Let him settle in.

What Murray has going for him is age. Normally goalies hit their peak around 28. Probably why management didn't feel worried about giving him 4 year deal and gambling. He has the fundamentals, most of his mistakes are a mental thing or sometimes looks literally like inexperience.

 

[Icelevel]

One thing is for sure the defence was brutal when Coburn & J. Brown were in there & the defence is still having problems with Brannstrom & Reilly in there. The only defenceman who has been steady since they started playing him has been Zub who continues to be quietly solid in all zones.

And zaitsev

 

[bert]

He should have been pulled after the 3rd goal. He looks tired. The team didn't show up yesterday and he should have been given the night off when that was very evident. It's a long year, the coach needs to pick his spots.

And zaitsev

Until yesterday he was really bad. Everyone gets a bad game, I had forgot what he is capable of. When he missed the net badly 3 shots in a row I knew it wasn't his night.

 

[JD1]

A big part of the problem with Murray is the type of chances we give up when we have a bad game. He's not a reaction goalie and we're giving up plays out of nowhere that need reaction.

When we have a quiet game in our end, Murray looks very tidy, very efficient and pucks hit him

Two plays from yesterday

Gaudreau has the puck on his backhand near our blue line and there's really no threat there, saucer pass to Valimaki coming right down main street boom it's in the net.

On the Monahan goal, Tierney has the puck and it should go down the ice. He botches it, Gaudreau to Monaghan and boom it's in the net

A guy like Anderson does a better job on those type of plays and some of the saves look spectacular

A guy like Murray makes it all look easy when you're not giving those plays up.

Another play from yesterday was the Norris turnover

All three of them are instantly in the net in situations where a couple seconds prior there was no threat

 

[umma gumma]

A big part of the problem with Murray is the type of chances we give up when we have a bad game. He's not a reaction goalie and we're giving up plays out of nowhere that need reaction.

When we have a quiet game in our end, Murray looks very tidy, very efficient and pucks hit him

Two plays from yesterday

Gaudreau has the puck on his backhand near our blue line and there's really no threat there, saucer pass to Valimaki coming right down main street boom it's in the net.

On the Monahan goal, Tierney has the puck and it should go down the ice. He botches it, Gaudreau to Monaghan and boom it's in the net

A guy like Anderson does a better job on those type of plays and some of the saves look spectacular

A guy like Murray makes it all look easy when you're not giving those plays up.

Another play from yesterday was the Norris turnover

All three of them are instantly in the net in situations where a couple seconds prior there was no threat

Needs time to reset...

 

[JD1]

Needs time to reset...

Yes, exactly

 

[OD99]

He should have been pulled after the 3rd goal. He looks tired. The team didn't show up yesterday and he should have been given the night off when that was very evident. It's a long year, the coach needs to pick his spots.


Until yesterday he was really bad. Everyone gets a bad game, I had forgot what he is capable of. When he missed the net badly 3 shots in a row I knew it wasn't his night.

I hope they give him the extra day rest and let Daccord play tomorrow.

He looked very confident in net and with how difficult our D can find it to clear our zone I am really anxious to see how his puck handling skills can play a factor. Murray looks stuck to his crease on dump ins.

 

[Xspyrit]

I hope people won't be down on Daccord if he gets shelled for 5+ goals against in his first start. Daccord has 2 starts in Belleville and gave up 5 goals each time against an average AHL team. The team defense was really bad in front of him, like it has been the case in Ottawa plenty of times this season.

 

[HoweHullOrr]

Agreed. Chabot really needs help poor guy. When Zaitsev has a bad game it gets ugly. Gudbranson was back to being bad. Brannstrom has to be sheltered. Hopefully this kinda game becomes a rare occurence because it's really hard to watch. I mean, we have better structure in my beer league lol

My casual (and perhaps not accurate) observation from an outside point of view is defense and center are positions that could be strengthened. You may have prospects that are ready to jump in and fill those roles though. I asked a question about this in another thread on this board. I don't think its a problem to have more options in those very important positions. Far better to have an abundance of options than the opposite.

 

[coladin]

He should get a Jekyll and Hyde mask