Matt Murray joins Leafs legend with a dismal, forgettable stat
Last night, Matt Murray had his best performance in months and quite possibly his best game of the season, despite giving up 4 goals. Murray faced 52 shots, not including the 9 shots he faced in the shootout. He was credited for stopping 48 of pucks on the night, officially, en route to a 5-4 shootout win over his former team the Ottawa Senators.
Unfortunately for Murray, this was the sixth game in a row in which he has given up 4 or more goals. That dismal stat makes him the first Leaf goalie since Ed Belfour in 2006 to reach that mark. Not exactly something you want to be remembered for.
The silver lining for Murray is that it was his first game in 2 months with a save percentage over .900. Murray absolutely stood on his head last night, facing 19 shots in the first period alone and gave the Leafs a chance to win the game even though they were being badly outplayed. He ended the game with a .923 SV%.
Despite the final score, Murray was able to steal the game for the Leafs, even though it should have never gone to a shootout. He had no chance on the first and fourth goal as the first one took a wild deflection and bounced up and over everyone and the fourth one was a bad bounce off of a Jake McCabe block. Were it not for 2 fluky goals, the Leafs win that game 4-2 with the performance Murray had turned in.
Hopefully this is the start of Murray stringing together a few solid games down the stretch and going into the playoffs with confidence.
