Matt Murray wasn’t going to feel sorry for himself.
As the injuries piled up, as his rehab started to feel like Groundhog Day, even as an NHL season was wiped out, Murray never got down on himself. He was confident he would be back.
“That’s just the hand I was dealt,” the 30-year-old Maple Leafs goaltender says. “I’m not one to complain about the hand; I just try to play it the best I can. So I try to make the right decisions. I’m feeling really good here now.
“I haven’t felt this good physically in a long time. Mentally as well.”
Murray is back with the Leafs, trying to dislodge Joseph Woll or Anthony Stolarz from one of the top two goaltending jobs or do what Martin Jones did last year, always be around and ready as the third goalie.
“It’s a competition,” says Murray, who stopped 15 of 18 shots in his first two appearances of the pre-season. both in relief. “I think I’ve just got to bring everything I have every day, leave it all out there and let the rest take care of itself.”
A two-time Stanley Cup winning goaltender in Pittsburgh (2016 and 2017), Murray was heralded as the Leafs’ saviour in net when he arrived from Ottawa in the summer of 2022. But multiple injuries — an adductor injury that October, an ankle injury in late January, a head injury in April — got in the way. And in the summer of 2023, it was his hips.
“My hips were always sore, but I thought that was common among goalies,” Murray says. “But it led to some groin stuff, some lower back issues and some other stuff.
“I just felt like my whole body wasn’t working properly the way it should.”
After consulting with Dr. Bryan Kelly at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, Murray underwent double hip surgery. It cost him the 2023-24 NHL season, though he was able to play three games with the AHL Marlies, just to test things.
The procedure was intricate. First, dead tissue attached to his labrum — the soft tissue that attaches the femur to the pelvis — had to be removed. Then cam deformities, like bone spurs, were shaved to give the hips back their movement.
“If you think of the hip joint as a ball and socket joint, there’s the cup which comes from the pelvic bones, then the ball is the top of the femur,” says Dr. Ali Rendely, a physical medicine and rehabilitation doctor at Toronto’s University Health Network. She did not treat Murray.
“If you think of trying to move a ball in a socket that has excess bone coming off of it, it’s going to get stuck and not give you that full range of motion that you’re looking for.”
Rendely says goalies are more prone to suffering the kind of hip injury Murray had than other players. But the prognosis is positive.
“The vast majority — I think some of the studies say over 90 per cent — do return to the National Hockey League and other leagues in Europe,” Rendely says.
Murray, who has played just 26 regular-season games since joining the Leafs, is on a one-year, $875,000 (U.S.) deal but he could have plenty of hockey left in him.
He says he is playing this season not just for himself but for those who put in so much time to help him get back. That includes Paul Hemsworth, his trainer in Thunder Bay, Ont., and Jon Elkin, his personal goalie coach, Leafs strength and conditioning coach Artie Hairston, Leafs high-performance director Rich Rottenberg, and Kelly.
“I’m extremely thankful to the team for setting me up with a guy of that calibre,” Murray says. “I have a great group of people around me and I’m super thankful for them. Those are just some of the names, but there’s a lot of people involved.”
His teammates are glad Murray has made it back.
“It’s great to see because we saw firsthand how hard he worked to get healthy and to do what he could to be available,” forward John Tavares says. “Many people didn’t see it last year but Murray was here every day and he worked his rear end off, with the rehab and the commitment he made to get better and get healthy.
“I know he’s excited to start fresh and he’s feeling good and ready to push himself. I’m really happy for him.”
Murray agrees it was a long process.
“Those guys that I mentioned made it a really enjoyable process. Quite honestly, working with Artie every day, he keeps an amazing attitude and kept me in line. There were days where it felt like Groundhog Day. I wasn’t able to get on the ice for pretty long time, which can be mentally draining. So having a guy like Artie there to keep me in line, and the team around me, those guys kept it fun and kept it interesting and we kept progressing.
“So, again, I owe it all to the team around me.”
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