The first time Matt Murray put on goalie pads, he didn't exactly look like a natural.
At 7 years old, wearing rented goalie equipment, Murray barely could move across the crease.
"I actually put my pads on the wrong legs," he said. "It may not seem like a big deal, but it's impossible to move it if you put them on the wrong legs because the outside is so stiff.
"I was basically just flopping around on my stomach the entire game."
He has gotten a bit more comfortable in goal since then.
Murray _ who finally made his season debut last week after missing more than a month with a broken hand that occurred at the World Cup of Hockey _ has developed from that kid flopping around in the crease into a Stanley Cup champion goalie.
In many ways, Murray's size and rangy athleticism make him the prototype of the modern NHL goaltender. His skill set also has put the Penguins in a well-publicized predicament, as next summer's expansion draft might force the Penguins to trade franchise cornerstone Marc-Andre Fleury if they want to keep Murray, 22,
Those skills were developed and honed over the past 15 years, from Thunder Bay, Ontario, to Pittsburgh.
As soon as he got his pads on the right legs.
Murray spent his first hockey-playing years, ages 7-9, splitting time between defense and goalie. At age 10, he had to make a choice.
"They said I had to pick one, so I did some soul-searching, took a couple of days and decided to be a goalie," Murray said. "I think that was the right choice."
Like most kids, Murray liked all the equipment associated with playing in goal. He also liked the level of customization and personal expression the position afforded him.
"I always thought the helmets were a really cool thing," he said. "I liked to look at a lot of NHL guys' helmets back when I was younger, just because I liked the personalization of it."
Today, Murray's mask is an homage to his heritage, with Dutch and Scottish flags _ his parents' homelands _ on the back.
Murray also liked the cerebral aspect of the sport.
"You have to have almost like a sixth sense, hockey sense," Murray said. "You could be as athletic and as fast as you want, but if you're reacting after the shot comes or after the pass is made, you're not going to get there in time."
Shortly after he started playing full time in goal, Murray caught the eye of Rick Evoy, a Peewee goaltender coach for the AAA Thunder Bay Kings, the local travel team.
When Evoy _ who ended up coaching Murray through the beginning of his junior career _ recalls first seeing Murray play, even at just 10 years old, his first recollection is "smooth, very smooth."
"His stance, his movement side-to-side, the way he used his stick and his gloves, it was all natural," Evoy said. "There wasn't anything forced, it was just the way he was. I noticed it at 10, and I told his parents that he is going to go far."
Around that time, Murray also began spending some time in the summer at Jon Elkin's Goalie School in Toronto. Elkin, now the goaltenders coach with the Arizona Coyotes, specifically recalled how naturally Murray could get into his butterfly technique _ the standard for modern goalies, yet a potentially awkward physical position.
"There's a lot of technical details involved in executing the butterfly properly," Elkin said. "Some people have better flexibility at the hips than others, and Matt has a lot of flexibility. One can improve their flexibility, although to get to where Matt is, not everybody can get there."
And for as quickly as Murray took to the technical aspects of the position, the pure, intangible satisfaction of shutting down an opposing shooter is what made him fall in love with playing between the pipes.
"A big glove save goes a long way," Murray said. "It's kind of like golf. You know in golf, where you might hit one or two good shots a round, but those one or two good shots keep you coming back? It's kind of like a glove save being a goalie. That's probably the most fun thing about it."
Murray knows the feeling as an avid golfer himself. Growing up, he played just about every sport available to him, and was athletic enough to excel in most of them.
He enjoyed basketball as a kid, but now tennis is his preferred offseason sport. He and a group of longtime friends play in the offseason when he goes back to Thunder Bay.
Murray's coaches encouraged other sports _ particularly reflex-oriented games such as tennis and racquetball _ to help develop lateral quickness, hand-eye movement and response to unpredictable movement patterns.
Murray's tall, rangy frame always lent itself to these sports, too. Evoy recalled seeing Murray off to juniors _ Murray was picked in the second round of the 2010 OHL draft by the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds _ as a 6-foot-tall, 15-year-old. When he returned to Thunder Bay, he had shot up another 4 inches.
The Penguins currently list Murray at 6 feet 4, 178 pounds. Evoy joked Murray was a "beanpole" out of his equipment, especially in his later teen years. Getting Murray's weight and strength up has been a focus for Bales and the Penguins since the team selected him in the third round of 2012 NHL draft.
"Obviously, when he got in scramble situations and stuff, he wasn't as quick as he is now," Bales recalled of his scouting trips to Sault Ste. Marie to watch Murray. "He was probably a little weak and not able to move the gear around as fast as he'd like. When he was on his feet, he moved really well for a big guy. That was really impressive."
When you ask any of his current teammates about Murray's best attribute, though, the answer just about always comes back to his mental approach to the game. Murray was unflappable backstopping the Penguins to a Stanley Cup in the spring, and appeared to not miss a beat in two wins against the Ducks and the Sharks last week.
Murray always has played with confidence, his former coaches say, but it took a bit of prodding to make it a true asset for him on the ice.
Evoy, for instance, said the one area he had to work most with Murray was his willingness to come out of his net and play the puck.
"Both those efforts are totally confidence moves," Evoy said. "You have to be confident to come out of the net."
Murray's competitiveness, though, has never really been a question. Evoy recalled one game, a AAA Peewee tournament championship in Superior, Wisc., when Murray allowed a goal to tie the score with three seconds left on the clock.
After Murray got some consoling from Evoy in the locker room, the teams ended up playing six 10-minute overtimes before Murray's team ended up winning. Murray finished with 44 saves on 47 shots.
"Six overtimes," Evoy said. "Everybody was to the point of, 'Oh just let a goal in, we don't care. We're tired and we want to go home.' "
Everybody except Murray, who even admits that dealing with the frustration of getting scored on was one of his biggest challenges with learning the goalie position as he got older.
"It'd get to a point where it'd be detrimental because I was so angry about it," Murray said. "That's probably the toughest part, especially when you're young because you don't know how to control your emotions when you're young. That was the toughest part, trying to keep my cool when I kept getting scored on."
He learned to do so, though, and now draws praise for his calm demeanor on the ice, even as sticks, pucks and skates are flying around him.
Evoy credits Murray's parents, Jim Murray and Fenny Seinen, with instilling in their son a sense of maturity that carries over into his role in the Penguins' goal.
"His parents made sure he was grounded," Evoy said. "His parents had a big, big influence on his attitude in the net. You know how everybody says he's so calm? That came from his parents."
Murray's parents _ with the help of another family _ learned how to help him put his pads on right, too. And once they figured that out, all the pieces were in place for Murray to develop into the goalie he is today.
"It wasn't a great experience my first time," Murray said. "But for whatever reason I wanted to keep doing it."
