Sheldon Keefe calls out Matt Murray following loss to Hurricanes
Matt Murray's roller coaster season continues after allowing 4 goals against the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday night in a game the Leafs very arguably should have won. This marked the 7th time in his last 8 games where Murray has allowed 4+ goals and 12th time in 25 games on the season. He wasn't fully to blame for their 5-3 loss to the Hurricanes but Sheldon Keefe wasn't all too pleased with his effort either.
The head coach was quoted as saying:
"I thought he did a good job for us. But of course, it's difficult to win with any sort of regularity if you have to score more than four. Matt's got to find a way to keep one or two of those out."
"Regularity" is the key word to take out of that quote because it's happening at an all-time pace and even with the high-octane offense that the Toronto Maple Leafs have at their disposal, scoring 5 goals a game is tough - especially against stingier opponents like the Canes.
Carolina entered Saturday night first in the NHL in shots allowed, 3rd in the NHL in shots on goal and 2nd in the NHL in goals allowed. Toronto actually ended up out-shooting them 44-28 with Auston Matthews firing a ridiculous 15 shots all by himself but Pyotr Kochetkov made the timely saves that Keefe would like to see from Murray.
Going back to mid-December, which is a stretch of 16 games, Murray has posted an 8-7-0 record with an .884 SV% and a 3.20 G.A.A. Before tonight, he was coming off back-to-back quality starts where he made 48 saves on 52 shots last Saturday against the Ottawa Senators and then backed that up with a 33-save performance against the Florida Panthers, en route to a 6-2 win.
With the playoffs just around the corner and Ilya Samsonov away from the team, the 4-goal onslaughts have to be a thing of the past with how things quickly change in the post-season. Teams clamp up defensively, things get tighter, and the opposition plays you a lot harder. Scoring 5 goals a game against Tampa Bay is not the recipe for success. If Murray were to be named the starter for the playoffs, he'd need to post better numbers and make that timely save you'd need him to make in a tight game.
Comparatively, in that same amount of time, Samsonov is 16-7-3 with a .907 SV% and a 2.65 G.A.A. He has allowed 4+ goals 8 times in those 26 games, which is a stark difference to the run of 7 out of 8 games that Murray is currently riding. Samsonov very well might be the Leafs' starter for Game 1 if this trend continues for Murray.
| POLL | ||
26 MARS | 750 ANSWERS Sheldon Keefe calls out Matt Murray following loss to Hurricanes Is Matt Murray's recent play concerning or just unlucky? | ||
| Concerning | 617 | 82.3 % |
| Unlucky | 133 | 17.7 % |
| List of polls | ||
