After the Glory, Still with the Fight: Matt Murray's Not Done Yet

From the summit of two Stanley Cups to the long, quiet road back. Matt Murray looks for redemption in Seattle.

(Murray looks over mask during 2024-2025 season)

By Anthony Pellegrino @Pellegrinoap50 TheFrozenFocus.com NHL Correspondent

In the summer of 2017, Matt Murray stood at center ice in Nashville.

The Stanley Cup balanced high above his head, a 23-year-old two-time champion in the prime of his promise.

Today, his name is rarely mentioned outside of injury reports and depth charts.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Murray had entered the league as a surprise. A rookie goaltender thrust into the most pressurized stage in hockey and delivering with a calm that belied his age.

Murray’s unexpected rise began in April 2016, when a concussion sidelined Marc‑André Fleury just as the postseason approached. He never seemed to flinch. At just 21 years-old.

A year later, it was Fleury who carried Pittsburgh through the early rounds before yielding the net midway through the conference final. Murray stepped back in and finished the work, closing the Cup Final with the poise of someone far older, the chants of a city still ringing in his ears.

(Murray in action during 2017 Playoffs)

In his playoff debut, Game 3 against the Rangers, he allowed just one goal. Two nights later he shut them out, making it feel as if the net had always belonged to him.

Fleury returned briefly in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final but faltered, allowing four goals on nine shots. The Penguins reverted to Murray, who remained in net through the Finals and helped Pittsburgh capture the Cup.

Fast forward to 2017: Murray was injured during pre-game warmups before the first-round matchup with Columbus. Fleury stepped in to carry the team for a while winning a 49‑save Game 5 and pushing the Penguins past Washington.

But midway through the conference final, a healthy Murray reclaimed the crease and stayed there through their second Cup in as many seasons.

On top of the hockey world was Matt Murray.

The next season brought a different kind of pressure. Fleury was gone, claimed by Vegas in the expansion draft, and for the first time there was no question whose crease it was. Murray was the starter now, the only Cup-winning goaltender in the room, and the Penguins were chasing a third straight championship.

(Fleury and Murray chat during stoppage of play)

But hockey has a way of eroding even the surest things. The injuries came first, the kind that lingered, the kind that chipped away at rhythm and confidence.

Through much of the 2017–18 regular season, he carried that load the way Pittsburgh expected. Steady, composed, capable of stringing together the kind of weeks that make a team believe another long spring is possible. But the schedule was heavy, the minutes piled up, and the injuries began to creep in.

In late February, he suffered a concussion, his third in four years, and missed nearly a month. The break in rhythm came at the worst time, dulling the edge that had once made him impenetrable in the biggest games.

He returned for the playoff push, helping secure a postseason berth, but the certainty that once surrounded him had dulled. In the second round against Washington, the saves that once felt automatic sometimes weren’t, and the Penguins’ run ended in six games.

It was the first time in his young career that he finished a season without a Stanley Cup, and the first sign that the path ahead might not be as straightforward as it once seemed.

(Penguins following victory in 2018 Playoffs)

The years that followed only deepened the uncertainty. The injuries mounted and the consistency that once defined him proved harder to summon. By the summer of 2020, the Penguins were ready to move on, sending Murray to Ottawa in search of a fresh start.

The Senators offered the promise of a reset, but the reality was less forgiving. The Senators were in the depths of a rebuild, their young defense often leaving their goaltenders exposed, and Murray struggled to find footing.

Behind a young, porous defense, he cycled in and out of form. In late 2021, he cleared waivers and was sent to Belleville in the AHL, humbling terrain for a player once hailed as unstoppable.

Toronto became the next chapter in summer 2022. The Maple Leafs took a chance on the veteran, offering a low-risk reclamation project. But fate had other plans: injuries again fractured any semblance of consistency. A conditioning stint in the AHL followed, the crease belonging elsewhere.

(Murray in AHL with Marlies)

Then came the longest pause of all. In October 2023, he underwent bilateral hip surgery and missed a full season. It was a career-altering moment, 2,500 days from the bright lights of Pittsburgh to rehab and small-arena games.

But in December 2024, Murray reemerged. Six hundred and twenty-nine days after his last NHL appearance, he reclaimed the crease and stopped 24 of 27 shots in a 6–3 win over Buffalo.

"I was able to take a moment… and just kind of look around and appreciate the long journey that it’s been," he said.

Each breath, each rehab milestone landing as hard-earned triumph

This past summer, as a free agent, he signed with Seattle. Not as a headline-making starter, but as a depth veteran on a quieter mission. His focus now is simple: provide stability, mentorship, and readiness.

It’s far from center ice in Nashville, but for someone who once stood atop the hockey world before slipping through its cracks, it’s still a place to stand, and one more chapter in an unfinished story.

On a mission, trying to carve out a place again in a league that once belonged to him.