Penguins' Matt Murray as cool, calm as ever as 4th playoff run begins
Just one starting goalie in the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs is younger than 24-year-old Matt Murray. But only four have more postseason wins.
Have three playoff runs added a layer of wisdom that could make the Pittsburgh Penguins goalie even better than the two-time Stanley Cup winner already is?
Not necessarily, Murray said, but only because he insisted he approached his 2016 Stanley Cup baptism as a 21-year-old kid the same way he prepares for games now.
“I mean, I feel a little bit older, a little bit more experienced, I guess,” Murray said Tuesday on the eve of his team’s 2019 playoff opener. “But, honestly, I tried to approach that first game the same way, too.”
Murray stopped 16 of 17 shots during a 3-1 Penguins win against the New York Rangers in his postseason debut April 19, 2016.
“My mindset was I was still looking for the same (regular-season) mindset,” Murray said. “And that was just to go out there and play hockey and not worry about anything, not worry about results, not worry about anything except go play. And that’s, I think, all you can do out there.”
That is Murray way of saying he isn’t any more mature than he was at 21 than he is now only because he was already unflappable and even-keeled as a rookie. Three years, 148 NHL regular-season games, 44 playoff games, eight series played, seven series won and two Cups earned only hardened that approach and outlook Murray said he takes to every game — no matter the stakes.
“At the end of the day it’s still the exact same,” Murray said of playoff hockey versus the regular season. “Yeah, every play is different. Every game is different for sure. But nothing physically changes about it every game. So it’s just about doing the little things and trying to focus on your game and not really worrying about anything else that you can’t control. And that’s kind of how I try to approach every single game I have played in.”
Murray has played in plenty of games over the past 6 ½ weeks. He started 20 of the Penguins’ final 21 regular-season games. That stretch alone increased his career starts total by 15 percent.
Never before had Murray played 20 games in such a compact period of time. Having missed time because of injury 10 times in less than 3 ½ years worth of an NHL career, Murray’s perceived lack of durability might be the lone blemish on his career resume .
In light of that injury-riddled past, was carrying a team — almost singlehandedly — through an entire quarter of the season all the more gratifying?
“I honestly didn’t even know that I played that many games,” he said. “It just it is what it is. I try to prepare myself one game at a time. That’s really it. I hate to keep saying the same things, but that’s really all I can tell you.”
Murray went 10-4-3 with a 2.16 goals-against average and .934 save percentage over the past 17 games, helping the Penguins climb from out of the playoff picture into third in the Metropolitan Division.
“I think everybody, the last month, really raised their level. We had to with the situation we were in,” captain Sidney Crosby said. “ ‘Murr’ led the way there.
“He had some incredible games and kept us in a lot of those important games that were tight games, one-goal games. That’s what we’re going to see in the playoffs. We should be confident, and I’m sure Murr is feeling confident about his game as well.”
Chris Adamski is a TribLive reporter who has covered primarily the Pittsburgh Steelers since 2014 following two seasons on the Penn State football beat. A Western Pennsylvania native, he joined the Trib in 2012 after spending a decade covering Pittsburgh sports for other outlets. He can be reached at cadamski@triblive.com.
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