rewrite this title ‘A long road. A big mountain to climb’: Inside Matt Murray’s emotional journey back to the NHL

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Matt Murray looked up to the scoreboard above him, counted down the seconds as they disappeared and finally pumped his fist.

It had been 638 days since Murray last felt the feeling washing over him.

Bilateral hip surgery forced the Toronto Maple Leafs goalie out of the entire 2023-24 season, the final of a four-year contract. There was no guarantee the oft-injured Murray would play in the NHL again. A one-year contract offered him a lifeline to continue grinding far out of the spotlight in the AHL, with only one goal.

And over a year and a half later, Murray was back to where he had fought to be: in the NHL win column after stopping 24 shots in a 6-3 win over the Buffalo Sabres.

“A long road. A big mountain to climb. But I kept this moment in the front of my mind on the days it felt tough,” Murray said.

The 30-year-old’s eyes grew more red with every word he spoke after the game. His voice quivered.

“A big release,” he said, struggling to find the words to put nearly two years away from the NHL into perspective. “A rush of emotions.”

The typical goalie hugs with teammates after the win were tighter, longer. In a physical game where a player’s career can turn on a dime, Murray’s return resonated far more heavily than the 2 points the Leafs also added on the day.

“It’s good to see (Murray) smiling,” Steven Lorentz said, “because you know he’s back doing what he loves.”

In the dressing room, Max Domi immediately handed Murray the team’s WWE-style wrestling belt as player of the game. Murray’s up-and-down performance was secondary.

“He was getting that thing, 100 percent, he deserved it,” Domi said. “The ability to stick with it mentally, out of all those days that I’m sure he had a lot of doubt, it’s a long road to recovery. We’re all super proud of him.”

It’s easy to quantify just how long Murray’s road back to the NHL was in days: 628 of them between his last two appearances.

It’s far more difficult to accurately describe just how arduous that road is.

Injuries have dogged Murray throughout his career after winning back-to-back Stanley Cup titles in his first two seasons in the NHL with the Pittsburgh Penguins. His games played tapered off every season from 2018 to 2022. After he was traded to the Leafs in summer 2022, he struggled through his first season. It was fair to wonder whether hip surgery would be the final dagger in his NHL career.

But Murray would still hang around teammates at the Leafs’ practice facility during his rehabilitation last season, feeling so close but so far away from the league he once conquered.

“The fact that he’s just on his way back here says a lot about his character, his dedication to the game,” Lorentz said.

Murray kept a stall full of his gear at that facility that was never used. An important and humane gesture from the Leafs organization, but still a reminder that Murray was not playing NHL games.

Even after re-signing with the Leafs on a one-year, $875,000 deal, he felt like the organization’s No. 4 goalie. When the Leafs needed a netminder to replace the injured Anthony Stolarz, they called up Dennis Hildeby. The lanky Hildeby is seven years’ Murray’s junior.

How could Murray not wonder whether his NHL return would ever come?

“There were definitely times when it felt really difficult,” Murray said. “But whenever I felt like that, I had a great group of people around me. That’s the only reason why I’m here.”

All Murray could do was work his tail off, far away from public sight, quietly hoping for the return that finally came Friday night.

“The emotions were high today,” Murray said.

Those emotions perhaps ran highest before the game. The typically stoic Murray allowed himself to stop and appreciate how far he’s come.

“I was able to take a moment in warmups and during the anthem and look around and appreciate the long journey that it’s been and think of all the people who helped me get here,” Murray said.

It was the kind of game that reminded onlookers of the fragility of an NHL career. Just a few short years separated Murray from being a Stanley Cup winner to being largely written off from the NHL, all essentially before the age of 30.

“You feel for a guy like that because he works so hard and he wants it so bad,” Lorentz said. “We’re all rooting for him.”

Murray moved well enough in his return. He swallowed most of the 27 shots the Sabres threw at him, looking every bit the veteran he is. Murray had two goals against called back upon video review. His sprawling save on Sabres forward Alex Tuch was a reminder of the athleticism he can provide now that he’s fully healthy, too.

They’re all qualities Leafs fans might have forgotten. But they’re qualities that are still front of mind for Murray’s Leafs teammates.

“It hasn’t been forgotten in my mind what he’s accomplished in this league in his career,” Leafs forward Max Pacioretty said, himself no stranger to debilitating injuries that threaten a career. “It’s hard to almost remember what you’ve done, what you’ve accomplished because it seems like all the noise is always in the moment, whether it’s the injury or what has happened lately.”

Perhaps the Leafs win could have been predicted ahead of time. Sure, they were playing a reeling Sabres team that has now sputtered through 12 losses in a row. And they were buoyed by an upstart, white-hot line of Max Domi, Bobby McMann and Nick Robertson. They’re the third line in name only: The trio combined for three goals and 6 points against the Sabres.

But the opponent shouldn’t denigrate what was front of mind not just for Murray but also for the Leafs in Buffalo. They wanted to do right by a player who has done everything in his power to return to the NHL. You didn’t have to squint to see a defenceman like Jake McCabe throwing Sabres out of Murray’s crease with a little extra gusto.

“It gives you some incentive to go the extra mile because you know (Murray) has gone that extra mile just to get back to this position to where he’s at right,” Lorentz said. “It’s not like he half-assed it to get back to this point and he expected to be here. Surgeries and injuries like that, that he went through, that can stunt your career for a long time. You might never be able to recover to your old form.”

But Murray is working on getting back to the Matt Murray of old. And the Leafs’ need for Murray won’t end when they head north on the QEW back to Toronto.

The earliest Stolarz will likely return from a knee injury will be mid-to-late January. Hildeby doesn’t exactly have the full confidence of the Leafs organization right now after allowing a few soft goals during a recent call-up against the Sabres at home, combined with a less-than-stellar AHL season so far. He’s likely going to be an NHL player down the road, but there’s room for him to grow and develop more confidence in his game.

But Murray has what no other goalie in the Leafs organization has: experience. And that matters to Brad Treliving and Craig Berube: Both value games played and would rather lean on veterans whenever possible.

They’ll lean on Murray because of everything he’s done, and gone through, in his career.

After Friday night, that career looks drastically different.

“In reality, you’ve got to take each day as it comes and you never know when it’s going to be all over,” Pacioretty said. “So you don’t want to take days for granted.”

After Murray had dried his eyes and slowly taken off the pounds of goalie gear heavy with sweat, he sat on his own in the dressing room. The Leafs equipment staff all stopped unloading bags from the dressing room to give him a quiet pat on the back.

Murray looked up to see a note written on a whiteboard in the dressing room. The Leafs bus would be leaving in 20 minutes. There was another NHL game on the horizon.

He could smile once again knowing it certainly won’t be 628 days between being able to do what he loved.

(Top photo: Timothy T. Ludwig / Imagn Images)