In his return from a month-long adductor injury, Matt Murray made the saves when his team needed it the most. The ability has been there. It’s just a matter of if he can stay healthy.
PITTSBURGH — It was looking like it could be one of those games.
Early in the second period, Michael Bunting scored the first of his two goals just 11 seconds into frame to give the Toronto Maple Leafs a 3-0 lead. It was the first time the Leafs have had a lead that large so early in a game this season.
But the Pittsburgh Penguins stormed back for a pair of quick goals from Rickard Rakell and Sidney Crosby cut the lead down to 3-2. Then Mark Giordano took a penalty for for tripping Jason Zucker and the tying goal seemed inevitable.
The Penguins pressed and fired four shots on Murray in the opening minute of the opportunity, but the goaltender made the saves. The most impressive one was the last of the sequence where Murray got his glove up on Jake Guentzel’s shot before the Leafs were able to clear it away.
“I thought he was just really solid and calm,” Maple Leafs coach head coach Sheldon Keefe said after the team’s 5-2 victory against Pittsburgh.
Murray made 27 saves on 29 shots to pick up his first win of the season and first as a member of the Maple Leafs. And he did it at PPG Paints Arena for the first time since the Penguins.
“I was really hoping to get off to a good start here coming back from injury,” Murray said after the game. “I can’t say enough about how the guys played in front of me.”
Certainly he did get some help at times.
Jordie Benn, who had been playing in just his second game with the Leafs after recovering from his own groin injury, bailed Murray out a couple of times. Most notably when he got his stick in front of Crosby’s chance.
Goaltending is a weird position, but there are elements of Murray’s game, when healthy that are clear to see in its desirability.
With emotions riding high, given that it was his return to action after injury and that it was against the team where he won two Stanley Cups, he fought all of that back to pick up a win.
It’s the timing of the saves, when his team needed one, where Murray delivered.
There’s no telling how this story will play out. Murray could get hurt again. Ilya Samsonov may out perform him in goal and take a lion’s share of the starts.
But if and when the Maple Leafs get to the playoffs again, having Murray performance like the one in Pittsburgh on Tuesday in your hip pocket that can help you a game is why the team took the risk.
The numbers don’t mean anything if a soft goal goes in when you can’t have it happen.