Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Confident, quiet Murray ready to take mantle from Fleury
PITTSBURGH » Matt Murray jokes he can’t help but do a double take whenever he sees a No. 30 Pittsburgh Penguins jersey in public.
“I still think it’s a family member or something,” the Penguins goaltender said with a laugh.
Hard to blame him. Two years ago, Murray was still in the minors, a 21-year-old long on promise but whose time as the heir apparent to Marc-Andre Fleury was still off somewhere in the gauzy distance.
Like seemingly everything else in Murray’s burgeoning career, the future arrived ahead of schedule. Funny how winning a pair of Stanley Cup championships speeds things up.
When Murray skates onto the PPG Arena ice on Wednesday night for the season opener against St. Louis, he’ll do it for the first time as a true No. 1 NHL goalie. No more of the “Murray vs. Fleury” debates that raged across social media and talk radio — but never in the Penguins dressing room — during their professional if occasionally uncomfortable coexistence.
The gig is Murray’s. For now and for later.
Even with his name stenciled on his sport’s most prized possession — twice — he’s in no mood for a victory lap.
“I think there’s always something to prove,” Murray said. “Nothing’s given to you in this league that’s for sure. You’ve got to keep your foot on the gas pedal and that’s what I intend to do. I don’t feel like I’ve earned anything.”
On that point, he might be wrong. The Penguins didn’t deal the franchise’s all-time winningest goaltender to Las Vegas as a favor to get Fleury more playing time. Murray’s play during the 2016 and 2017 playoffs (when he went a combined 22-9 with a 1.95 goals-against average) erased what little doubt remained in general manager Jim Rutherford’s mind about Murray’s dependability. Fleury was a luxury the team no longer needed to afford.
It also set the bar almost impossibly high. Anything less than a championship will be a comedown on some level. Yet Murray isn’t one to get caught up in the big picture. There’s only the next practice, the next drill, the next game. The player who admits to studying Tom Brady’s mental approach does not get caught up in the results. Do the right things the right way often enough, and the results will come.
“My goal isn’t to win the Cup,” he said. “My goal is to get better today, better tomorrow, better the day after that. That’s helped.”
While Murray points to his astounding success as a byproduct of playing on a team loaded with talent that happens to include two of the best players in the world in Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, the rest of the Penguins see it a little bit differently.
“He’s very much one of the huge reasons we won two Stanley Cups,” defensemen Ian Cole said. “He’s part of the core of this team now that leads us to be successful night in and night out.”
Heady territory to be sure for the tall skinny kid from Thunder Bay, Ontario, who grew up idolizing Martin Brodeur. He was in middle school the last time someone other than Fleury started the opener for the Penguins. Jocelyn Thibault dropped the first three games in 2005 before giving way to Fleury,