At some point this season the Pittsburgh Penguins are going to have to address Matt Murray and his pending contract extension. I have no doubt the Penguins will come to terms with Murray because he has shown to be a legit #1 goaltender in the league. At worst he is league average.
Also working in Murray’s favor is the fact Jim Rutherford has a history of paying his goaltenders. He had no issues giving Cam Ward his 6.3M AAV contract worth 11.3% of the cap. He also had no issue giving Marc-Andre Fleury a full NMC on his 5.75M AAV contract worth 8.8% of the cap. It isn’t a matter of if Matt Murray will re-sign with the Penguins, but for how much.
Here is a list of current goaltender comparables who were signed between the ages of 24-26
Matt Murray turns 26 in May so he would fall within the range of these other goaltenders.
Some of the cap hits come in above 10% and that can be a little bit scary. When you combine the fact Jim Rutherford is totally fine bucking up to pay goaltenders and the fact Murray is a two-time Stanley Cup winning goalie the dollar amounts can add up pretty quick.
Here is what is working for the Penguins. Murray is still a restricted free agent and does not play for the Toronto Maple Leafs so he probably isn’t going to “reset the market…. He has had injury issues which have held him back at times and caused him to go through some really bad stretches. His sample is only 161 games and the injuries helped temper his overall save percentage which his still at an impressive .917 in all situations. We have yet to see a legitimate offer sheet since the Flyers gave one to Shea Weber so that shouldn’t be too big of a concern. Tuukka Rask, Carey Price, and Sergei Bobrovsky all broke the 10% cap hit mark when signing in this age range, but all three also had larger samples to draw from even if they didn’t have the two Stanley Cups Murray did. Bobrovsky did have a Vezina and Carey Price was tapped to be Canada’s goalie while playing for Montreal so that alone drives up his price. Tuuka Rask’s save percentage spoke for itself at the time of his extension. Here are the career overall save percentage of those top three cap hit percentage goaltenders at the time of signing their 24-26 year old extensions.
As mentioned above Murray is currently at .917
Ultimately, when looking over the past goaltender contracts, the general manager, Murray’s stats, and the two Stanley Cups I don’t think it would surprise anyone to come to the conclusion he is going to get a pretty big contract.
My own personal speculation is that Murray’s cap hit percentage stays lower than 10, but not by much. Here is a breakdown of the cap hit percentages at an 81.5M ceiling
If I had to wager a guess I think Matt Murray will be given a contract in the 9.0-9.5% range pushing his cap hit to the mid 7M range assuming it is an eight-year deal. If the Penguins wanted a shorter five-year deal I could see the 8M+ options being realistic.
Paying a premium for goaltending can be a sketchy thing. There are a lot of teams paying quite a bit for goaltending and not getting the return they desire for it. In the case of Matt Murray I believe the Penguins would be getting another quality five years from Murray and the cost is likely to fall in line with the other top end goalies who signed in their 24-26 year old range.
It’s not going to be cheap. The Penguins are going to do it.
To make this work Jim Rutherford is going to have to do a better job of managing his mid to low tier contracts. Something that he has done a very poor job of the last few years. Joining Murray as players who need a contract next offseason are Justin Schultz, Alex Galchenyuk, Jared McCann, Dominik Simon, Dominik Kahun, and Marcus Pettersson. It will be a busy year of decisions.
Thanks for reading!