November 28: Murray has cleared waivers, per Bruce Garrioch of TSN and The Ottawa Sun. The team’s assigned him to the Belleville Senators.
November 27: On Friday, Senators goaltender Matt Murray was a healthy scratch against Anaheim. One day later, he has been placed on waivers for the purpose of assignment to AHL Belleville.
The 27-year-old is in his second season with Ottawa after they flipped a second-round pick and prospect Jonathan Gruden to Pittsburgh to get him back at the 2020 draft. At the time, they felt they had their starting goalie of the foreseeable future, quickly inking him to a four-year, $25MM contract; his $6.25MM AAV is the sixth-highest in the league among goaltenders this season.
What have they received in return for that money? Not a whole lot. Murray struggled considerably last season, posting a 3.38 GAA with a .893 SV% in 27 games, the worst numbers of his career. This season, those numbers aren’t any better – a 3.26 GAA and a save percentage of .890 in six games. Those numbers are below average for a backup let alone a starter.
Ottawa’s decision to dress Anton Forsberg and Filip Gustavsson against the Ducks was a strong message from head coach D.J. Smith that he has lost faith in Murray. At this point, getting him down to Belleville for a stint to try to give him an opportunity to find his game again against lower-level competition certainly makes some sense.
Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch suggests the Sabres and Coyotes could be teams to keep an eye on with regards to a potential claim. Both teams have a need for a goaltender but with two years still left on his contract and both teams operating as lower budget squads, it’s hard to imagine they’d be willing to take him off waivers with how poor he has performed in Ottawa. A trade with retention after he clears and maybe some games in the minors would be a likelier scenario.
Assuming he does indeed clear on Sunday, the Sens will get a small bit of cap relief as $1.125MM of Murray’s AAV will come off their books when he’s sent down. Of course, with Ottawa being a team that’s closer to the Lower Limit of the cap than the Upper Limit, that relief won’t be worth a whole lot to them but they’ll be able to move forward with a Forsberg-Gustavsson tandem for at least the time being while giving Murray an opportunity to get back to form in the minors.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman was the first to report that Murray would be waived.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Teams will wait for Murray to clear waivers and then strike a deal with Ottawa with salary retention. That way maybe the Sens will get SOMETHING for him. But then again if he goes down and finds his game, that would be better for all.
There is no way he gets claimed. I think 6Mil is way too much for anyone to claim him
This guy is such a bum. Pierre Dorion has like a 90% fail rate when it comes to pro scouting, he needs to go as well. Great job rebuilding, but he has shown zero ability to do anything to build around that core. That Murray contract is a firable offense.
You are correct but the most puzzling thing is his father was a great scout.
How many of the big contracts to FA’s are mandated by Eugene? I think many of the contracts he’s handed out to their own home grown players are very good. Like Batherson, Chabot and Brady. But there’s gonna be some failures in there too not every GM is gonna have 100% success rate when your locking guys up early cause you know your owner is too cheap to wait
From a contender starter and multiple sc winning goalie to the worst in the league in a couple of years. Maybe the guy suffers from substance abuse or has some kind of colin wilson type of rumination issue.
I mean, he’s always looked about 15 years older in the face than he actually is, so I wouldn’t be surprised.
Losing your job to Forsberg…yikes
The history should not be rewritten, Matt Murray was great in 2016 and 2017. He WAS a really good goalie.
What happened to him?
Take your pick…
Broken hand at the World Cup.
Lost MAF as a mentor and/or competitor to push him.
His dad dying.
Too much success, too soon, no hunger.
I have two to add to the list…
Poor coaching. He was great under Bales, terrible under Buckley. He appeared to just start playing percentages (almost like, “if it hits me it hits me and if not, oh well”) instead of battling for saves.
Or my main theory…he is one of the least athletic people in the NHL for a while. When he younger, he was just above the line and his size, reads, vision, etc. allowed him to thrive, but…as he got older, a bit heavier, a bit slower, he dipped below the line and none of his other attributes mattered anymore. If this theory is correct, it means he’s never coming back.
I hope I’m wrong. By all accounts, Murray is a good guy and he helped us raise two banners.
One of the oldest 27 year olds I’ve ever seen.
And beyond anything else, goaltender is a streaky position. We can name ANY number of goalies over the last decade who were absolutely lights-freaking-out for a couple of seasons and were average at best otherwise: Hammond, Binnington, Jones, Mrazek, so many more. Getting a guy who can keep it up year in and year out, that’s not at all common.
(This is a reason I sneer at the cementheads who hate the amazingly consistent Tuukka Rask for reasons surpassing sentient understanding — the guy’s career AVERAGE save percentage is better than most goalies manage in a single season, and the only goalie in the expansion era with a better one is named Hasek.)
@forwhomjoshbelltolled – Don’t forget the concussions, too. Can’t be overstated. Also, losing your Dad at a relatively young age can impact you for years, if not a lifetime.
As a Sens fan I’m sad it didn’t work out here for him. Not just on the hockey side of things but he’s a good dude and it sucks that it didn’t work out for him or the team. Maybe a team with cap space would be willing to take him on if the Sens retain some salary or team another undesirable contract in return. Maybe to the Coyotes or Sabres? Both those teams are looking to add assets and if the Sens can throw in a guy like maybe Formenton, they can work something out.
KHL calling..His best bet..
Someone needs to fix him. Quickly.
I think he’s still good enough to be a solid backup in the league. So much of goaltending is your defense – look at Grubauer w/ Seattle v. Colorado. Arizona is bad but they are playing a more defensive game – might be a decent spot.
Eh, if the Flyers can rehabilitate Martin Freaking Jones, anyone can be saved.
Problem is no one’s going to take a flyer on a backup making 6 million.
Oops!!
Murray replace Fleury in Pittsburgh, maybe he can replace him again in Chicago!