Matt Murray’s NHL career could be arriving at a crossroads.
According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, it looks like the two-time Stanley Cup winner will be placed on waivers today.
It has been a tremendous fall for the goaltender. It is almost like this season has been a microcosm of his career. After showing some resolve and arriving in training camp 15 lbs heavier and in the best shape of his career, Murray put together two good starts to start his season before getting hurt. He struggled in his return and then as Covid was ravaging the team, he tested positive and then struggled again in his last outing.
Now Murray may potentially never play another game for this organization.
If that is the case, the four-year, $25-million commitment the Senators extended Murray in October of 2020 will have netted the organization: 33 appearances; a 10-18-1 record; an .892 save percentage; and the third-worst goals saved above expected (-19.32 GSAx) mark over the course of the last two seasons.
In six appearances for the Senators this season, Murray has gone winless. The statistics — an 0-5-0 record, .890 save percentage and 3.26 goals against average — aren’t the least bit flattering.
With two years left on his contract after this season that will pay him $7-million and $8-million in real dollars respectively, the odds of Murray being claimed are remote.
It certainly makes the timing of the news intriguing.
Why now? Why risk publicly embarrassing a veteran and two-time Stanley Cup winner at this time?
It makes sense that Murray and his camp would not be happy, but in fairness to the Senators, Murray’s been one of the worst goaltenders in the NHL over the past four seasons. Rather than just keep playing him sparingly behind Filip Gustavsson, maybe this is simply what the Senators needed to do so could send him to Belleville to play regularly and rebuild his career.
Murray’s tenure in Ottawa has played out rather predictably. Ineffectiveness, a lack of athleticism, a poor glove hand, and an inability to stay healthy for long periods of time have undermined whatever potential the Senators saw in him.
No revisionist history was needed to know that giving up the opportunity cost (a 2020 second-rounder), money and term that the Senators did to bring Murray into the fold and extend him were excessive. Coming off two poor seasons, the Senators overpaid for a name and past performance while ignoring all the risks and negatives created by Murray’s recent performance.
There was absolutely no need to award a multi-year commitment to a struggling goaltender at that time in their rebuild. There was no pressure to contend at the time and in looking ahead to the 2021 offseason, the goaltending market was about to flood with more talented alternatives. Thanks to Seattle’s introduction to the league, every organization had to expose a goaltender to expansion. Knowing that this market was going to come to fruition down the road, there was absolutely no reason for the Senators to overextend and handcuff themselves to such a risky alternative.
At its root, it was managerial negligence and where we go from here remains to be seen. Perhaps Murray is sent to Belleville and eventually finds his way back in the net. What’s even more likely is that the Senators buy him out at the end of the season.
Using CapFriendly’s calculator, it would cost the Senators $10-million to buy him out this summer or $2.5-million each year. In buying out Murray at the cost of two-thirds of his contract, the Senators would save $4.5-million and $5.0-million over the first two years of the buyout before they’d take the $2.5-million hit over the last two seasons. His cap hit over the next four seasons would be: $1.75-million; $750k; $2.5-million; and $2.5-million.
It would be a bitter pill to swallow, but for a budget-conscious organization, they would save money long-term while hopefully being able to reallocate some of those savings towards more talented players.
More importantly, is someone going to pay the price for this?
Whether it ultimately costs Dorion his job remains to be seen, but after Dave Cameron started Matt O’Connor in the Senators’ home opener in 2015, that decision contributed to his firing. The Matt Murray acquisition and extension was one of the worst series of moves in this organization’s modern history, so it remains to be seen whether it costs Pierre Dorion his job.
He has to be feeling the heat.
After Eugene Melnyk unilaterally hired Pierre McGuire to be his team’s senior vice-president of player development this past summer, there is an internal option should Melnyk decide that Dorion’s just not competent for the job.
They also exposed Daccord, a top prospect goalie who was taken by Seattle, rather than expose Murray! What a fiasco.
Pierre McGuire's uncharacteristic silence should worry Pierre Dorion. That dude only shuts up for a reason.