Hard to bump him from top 3 to just average... The team in front limited the amount of shots he faced, thus, each goal he let in, hurt his averages more than most others.

If anything, that actually made every save he had even more vital to having higher percentages.
- Guile

I thought one of the most important stats for a goalie was save %. Wasn't he 3rd in that area? His SA were the 2nd most in the playoffs too, behind Jones of course. I know the defense played great around him, but its not like he only had to make a handful of saves each game. He beat Washington, probably the best player in that series, beat TB and then San Jose. Those 3 real quality teams that he backstopped to a win. Were there a few a goals that I would have liked to see him stop, of course...then again, he is 22 years old and will only get better I assume. The really bad goals were position goals, and that can be worked on.

Michal Neuvirth .981
Frederik Andersen .947
Petr Mrazek .945
Braden Holtby .942
Ben Bishop .939
Roberto Luongo .934
Andrei Vasilevskiy .925
Thomas Greiss .923
Martin Jones .923
Matt Murray .923

Looks like tied for 8th to me but hey maybe I'm reading that wrong
- jaydogg1974

lol at you using a guy who played in 1 game to make a point. If we do that, then MAF proved in these playoffs he is no longer a starter caliber player.

The way he talks about Murray, all but suggests that he is his guy no matter what. He had him in Wilks, he couldn't wait to get him up here. When MAF was healthy, he never got the net back till Murray had a bad game. That to me sounds like MAF is considered the backup. All the DK stuff I have read points to Murray being Sullivans guy, I mean..its not like Rossi is writing that stuff, but Yohe and DK are both saying it, I tend to go with it. I trust them with inside info than anyone else. I would love to keep both goalies, but I just don't see MAF wanting to start only 30 games here...I just don't.
- Thorny

But see that your and DK's opinion of what you think Sullivan thinks, not necessarily what Sullivan thinks because Sullivan has never said how he feels about the situation, he also spoke very highly of MAF every time he spoke about him, that's what coaches do.

Also where did you get that Sullivan couldn't wait to get him here? Sullivan was hired in Jan and Murray didn't get called up until March when they had no choice but to call him up because Fleury was hurt and they only had Zatkoff on the roster, wouldn't a coach who couldn't wait to get a player up have made the move a lot sooner than 3 months later when he had no choice but to call someone up?

lol at you using a guy who played in 1 game to make a point. If we do that, then MAF proved in these playoffs he is no longer a starter caliber player.
- Thorny

Jay dog is heavily biased against Murray. I really have no idea why. He either has a huge boner for fleury or Murray picked on him in high school.

Murray seems solid. Not the star from day one I thought at first but above average goaltending. Glove hand is concerning. Not sure why he brings up Jarry. No one else is ranking him as anything more than a decent prospect.

lol at you using a guy who played in 1 game to make a point. If we do that, then MAF proved in these playoffs he is no longer a starter caliber player.
- Thorny

Who on that list played 1 game? Every player on that listed played at least 3 games which is half a series. If were just going to cherry pick numbers to suit our position then you should have said Murray was tied for 1st since he and Jones both had a .923sv% and they were the only goalies that played in the Cup so everyone else doesn't count.

I thought one of the most important stats for a goalie was save %. Wasn't he 3rd in that area? His SA were the 2nd most in the playoffs too, behind Jones of course. I know the defense played great around him, but its not like he only had to make a handful of saves each game. He beat Washington, probably the best player in that series, beat TB and then San Jose. Those 3 real quality teams that he backstopped to a win. Were there a few a goals that I would have liked to see him stop, of course...then again, he is 22 years old and will only get better I assume. The really bad goals were position goals, and that can be worked on.
- Thorny

You just proved my point. You claim HE beat Washington and HE beat TB & SJ but HE didn't beat those teams, the Pens beat those teams because they were the better team in each of those series, HE didn't single-handedly beat any of those teams. HE played well but was lucky/gifted enough to be playing behind the best team.

Michal Neuvirth .981
Frederik Andersen .947
Petr Mrazek .945
Braden Holtby .942
Ben Bishop .939
Roberto Luongo .934
Andrei Vasilevskiy .925
Thomas Greiss .923
Martin Jones .923
Matt Murray .923

Looks like tied for 8th to me but hey maybe I'm reading that wrong
- jaydogg1974

http://www.nhl.com/stats/leaders


Yeah, but we can count people who didn't even play an entire series to help validate your pissiness.

But then, 8th is no longer average in your sample, that is the top 3rd, so once again, you're still wrong.

League average goaltending was .915 this year. Murray doing better than that against superior competition is impressive.

I thought one of the most important stats for a goalie was save %. Wasn't he 3rd in that area? His SA were the 2nd most in the playoffs too, behind Jones of course. I know the defense played great around him, but its not like he only had to make a handful of saves each game. He beat Washington, probably the best player in that series, beat TB and then San Jose. Those 3 real quality teams that he backstopped to a win. Were there a few a goals that I would have liked to see him stop, of course...then again, he is 22 years old and will only get better I assume. The really bad goals were position goals, and that can be worked on.
- Thorny

3rd for both among "real" playoff starters. Hes a good goalie... his being great/elite might be a premature notion, I'll admit that. But going from Flower, who is great, to Murray, who is anyway from above average to elite, for 5 mil less is a no brainer.


Some people just hate basic math.

Jay dog is heavily biased against Murray. I really have no idea why. He either has a huge boner for fleury or Murray picked on him in high school.

Murray seems solid. Not the star from day one I thought at first but above average goaltending. Glove hand is concerning. Not sure why he brings up Jarry. No one else is ranking him as anything more than a decent prospect.
- sditulli

My bias isn't against Murray, my bias is against the people who are trying to prop Murray up to be more than he is. I couldn't agree more that Murray was solid, started out very well but showed some warts as time progressed, the warts are all fixable issues but it's still to be seen if he's capable of fixing the warts. At times he's shown the potential to be elite and at times he's shown reasons for concern. I'm sorry that I would rather wait to see how he actually turns out and won't just anoint him a God after 34 games when he was playing behind the most dominant team in the league for those 34 games, I'd rather wait to see how he does when the guys in front of him aren't blocking 30 shots/game.

3rd for both among "real" playoff starters. Hes a good goalie... his being great/elite might be a premature notion, I'll admit that. But going from Flower, who is great, to Murray, who is anyway from above average to elite, for 5 mil less is a no brainer.


Some people just hate basic math.
- Guile

I'm pretty sure that's basically exactly what I've been saying other than the last part about Murray over Fleury being a no brainer because I think that decision is more about Murray/Jarry than it is Murray/Fleury.

I'm pretty sure that's basically exactly what I've been saying other than the last part about Murray over Fleury being a no brainer because I think that decision is more about Murray/Jarry than it is Murray/Fleury.
- jaydogg1974

You have found a way to say it and come off as a bigger ass than me in doing so. Your point has been lost along the way.

http://www.nhl.com/stats/leaders


Yeah, but we can count people who didn't even play an entire series to help validate your pissiness.

But then, 8th is no longer average in your sample, that is the top 3rd, so once again, you're still wrong.
- Guile

also the "king" had 0.867. he should play in beer league he sucks. jonathan quick had 0.886% he should also play in a beer league he sucks big time (yes that quick. the vezina nomine quick).

You just proved my point. You claim HE beat Washington and HE beat TB & SJ but HE didn't beat those teams, the Pens beat those teams because they were the better team in each of those series, HE didn't single-handedly beat any of those teams. HE played well but was lucky/gifted enough to be playing behind the best team.
- jaydogg1974

I'm not sure what the exact argument that is going on here. Murray played very well, especially his ability to bounce back after a loss. Other than two of the games in the Washington series, he didn't outright steal games for the Pens. However, he did come up with some huge saves in key times. He also gave up one very poor goal (the Ward PPG from the blue line). The SV% stats that were thrown out before are completely irrelevant for comparison purposes. The top 3 were goalies who were eliminated in the first round. Obviously their SV% would have come down as their sample size got larger and the competition got better. Murray played behind a great team and the Pens were lucky to have a goalie that could keep them in almost every game. Again not sure what the argument is. The Pens are lucky to have Murray and Murray is lucky to play on the Pens. Let's just enjoy it.

My bias isn't against Murray, my bias is against the people who are trying to prop Murray up to be more than he is. I couldn't agree more that Murray was solid, started out very well but showed some warts as time progressed, the warts are all fixable issues but it's still to be seen if he's capable of fixing the warts. At times he's shown the potential to be elite and at times he's shown reasons for concern. I'm sorry that I would rather wait to see how he actually turns out and won't just anoint him a God after 34 games when he was playing behind the most dominant team in the league for those 34 games, I'd rather wait to see how he does when the guys in front of him aren't blocking 30 shots/game.
- jaydogg1974

Your biases are fairly clear. Or you wouldn't compare a goalie who played 20 games to a guy who played one game.

I like fleury. I like Murray. Personally think fleury could have 5-7 good years in him still. With Murray's AHL performance combined with his nhl performance he's pretty much as proven of a guy you can get in this league.

Jarry isn't even in the conversation yet. He's barely a good AHL goalie at this point.

Your faith in the goalie was just misplaced, what you really had faith in was the dominant team that played near flawless hockey the majority of the time and insulated the goalie to the point of only facing 4-5 shots a period, the fact is that if you evaluate the playoffs without bias you would see that in reality Murray lost more games for the Pens than he actually won for them, the rest was all on the team just dominating their opponent game in and game out, goaltending was generally irrelevant to the teams success in the playoffs.

Going beyond that, the suggestion of exploring a potential Murray trade is about both short and long term asset management and it has nothing to do with Murray vs Fleury, it's about Murray vs Jarry. If Jarry is going to eventually take the net from Murray in the next 2-3 years anyway then it makes more sense to move Murray for a King's Ransom now and have Fleury bridge the gap until Jarry takes over than to take a much smaller return for Fleury now and have Murray bridge the gap until Jarry takes over. It really all boils down to how they view the Murray v Jarry battle and if they view Jarry as being the long term option then moving Murray now makes sense, if they think Murray has the better long term future then Fleury is the right move now.
- jaydogg1974

I view Murray as better than Jarry and I view Fleury as a expensive luxury. He gets traded we clear up salary cap and could still add. Also Murray was a rookie and didn't lose more than he won. Sullivan wanted to go to Fleury and he was shaky. Yes he missed time but shaky is how I feel when Fleury is in net during the postseason. I appreciate all Fleury has done here but he also has concussion concerns and plays a position where you will be getting hit in the head.

Murray is the future and Fleury is the past.

also the "king" had 0.867. he should play in beer league he sucks. jonathan quick had 0.886% he should also play in a beer league he sucks big time (yes that quick. the vezina nomine quick).
- martox

Its a team sport... you don't need the super premo goalie... its great to have, stealing games is awesome, but not 100% required.

My bias isn't against Murray, my bias is against the people who are trying to prop Murray up to be more than he is. I couldn't agree more that Murray was solid, started out very well but showed some warts as time progressed, the warts are all fixable issues but it's still to be seen if he's capable of fixing the warts. At times he's shown the potential to be elite and at times he's shown reasons for concern. I'm sorry that I would rather wait to see how he actually turns out and won't just anoint him a God after 34 games when he was playing behind the most dominant team in the league for those 34 games, I'd rather wait to see how he does when the guys in front of him aren't blocking 30 shots/game.
- jaydogg1974

He's a rookie of course there will be need for improvement. The system worked for him yes but that system isn't changing. Besides we have seen Fleury get destroyed in the playoffs without Sullivan. Philly!!!

He's a rookie of course there will be need for improvement. The system worked for him yes but that system isn't changing. Besides we have seen Fleury get destroyed in the playoffs without Sullivan. Philly!!!
- lloyd095

Flower since the new goalie coach and shrink has been better... lets not use the meltdowns before we got him help against him. He has value, let a team buy him off us.

Look, if you can get a kings ransom for Murray, you explore it. If you think MAF can bridge the gap till the next guy, then I'm not against exploring it. The offer just has to be unreal, because The cap relief from trading MAF will help.

Look, if you can get a kings ransom for Murray, you explore it. If you think MAF can bridge the gap till the next guy, then I'm not against exploring it. The offer just has to be unreal, because The cap relief from trading MAF will help.
- Thorny

Cap space isn't that important in fleury deal. If Murray plays well this year we will have to pay him about 4 million. So for long term budgeting only opens up 1.75. Trading fleury this year opens up cap space that is tough to use since you can't really offer a guy term with it.

Look, if you can get a kings ransom for Murray, you explore it. If you think MAF can bridge the gap till the next guy, then I'm not against exploring it. The offer just has to be unreal, because The cap relief from trading MAF will help.
- Thorny

My thoughts exactly. My hunch tells me that there is a GM in the league that would pay out his a$$ to get Murray. If that doesn't happen though, easy decision, trade Fleury. You have to explore the returns on both before making a decision.

Cap space isn't that important in fleury deal. If Murray plays well this year we will have to pay him about 4 million. So for long term budgeting only opens up 1.75. Trading fleury this year opens up cap space that is tough to use since you can't really offer a guy term with it.
- sditulli

Agree, the cap savings is only mostly useful for this one year. But also, Kunitz and a few others will be off the books by next season. Is there a UFA out there sub 3.75M (the net savings from trading Fleury and then signing veteran backup) to make it worth making the move now?

Cap space isn't that important in fleury deal. If Murray plays well this year we will have to pay him about 4 million. So for long term budgeting only opens up 1.75. Trading fleury this year opens up cap space that is tough to use since you can't really offer a guy term with it.
- sditulli

Isn't Murray a RFA the next 3 years? So I don't think he will get 4 mil a year.