PITTSBURGH _ That unforgettable night in Nashville, Tenn., when the Penguins became the only team in the salary cap era to win the Stanley Cup in consecutive years, Marc-Andre Fleury glanced into a crowd of giddy faces, looking for the kid who took his job.
When the veteran goalie made that gracious gesture at Bridgestone Arena, moving the 23-year-old to the front of the line to lift the Cup, it felt like a passing of the torch. Matt Murray would be the man in Pittsburgh for the next decade.
Three years later, Murray's time with the Penguins has already run out.
The Penguins on Wednesday traded Murray to the Ottawa Senators. In return, they received prospect Jonathan Gruden and a 2020 second-round draft pick, which they used to select Finnish goalie Joel Blomqvist later in the day Wednesday.
"We would like to thank Matt for everything he's done in his five seasons with the Penguins," general manager Jim Rutherford said in a statement. "He was instrumental to our back-to-back Stanley Cup championships, and we wish him the best."
It ends a flummoxing five-year run in Pittsburgh for Murray, who didn't come close to touching the sky-high expectations placed on him after he became the first goalie in NHL history to win the Stanley Cup twice as a rookie.
Due to injuries and inconsistency, Murray never started more than 50 games in a season. He ranked 37th in the NHL in save percentage over the last three years. He won just two of his final 12 playoff starts. And he spent his final game in black and gold on the bench, watching the completion of another collapse.
Rutherford, who chose to keep Murray over Fleury when the expansion Vegas Golden Knights entered the league in 2017, made Murray available in trade talks after Tristan Jarry emerged with an All-Star season in 2019-20. Finances were also a factor, with the salary cap ceiling flattened due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Murray is set to become a restricted free agent this fall and could be awarded around $6 million if he goes to arbitration. The Penguins and his agent discussed an extension last summer but were too far apart on the financial parameters.
Murray, in an Instagram post, thanked Pittsburgh "for some incredible years."
"I cherished every opportunity I had to step onto the ice in a Penguins jersey. I learned so many valuable lessons, developed so many great friendships and experienced some truly awesome moments," wrote Murray, who specifically thanked Rutherford, the coaching and support staffs for the Penguins and his old teammates.
The Senators presumably plan to lock down Murray, now 26, long term. Maybe he will get his game going back in the right direction in Ottawa.
Murray was unshakeable during those two Cup runs, which he punctuated in 2017 with back-to-back shutouts to close out the Nashville Predators. He parked his 6-foot-4 frame atop his crease and was seemingly square to every shot.
He showed flashes of that elite level in the past three seasons, particularly in the second half of 2018-19, when he almost single-handedly lugged the Penguins into the playoffs. He finished that season with a .919 save percentage.
But his confidence waned at times. When the Penguins played too loose and the goals started to pile up, he retreated deeper into his crease, fearing back-door plays. That left him vulnerable upstairs, particularly on his glove side.
Murray had another early-season slump this past season. Jarry took advantage, establishing the longest shutout streak in Penguins history and ranking among the NHL leaders in many statistics before making his All-Star Game debut.
Both goalies were ordinary down the stretch, so for the qualifying round against Montreal, coach Mike Sullivan went with the guy who helped him get his name etched on the Stanley Cup twice. Murray gave up a back-breaking goal to Jeff Petry in Game 3 and was benched for the final game of the stunning playoff loss to the Canadiens.
In the last three postseasons, Murray went 7-12-0 with a .908 save percentage _ solid but not good enough to make up for his regular-season unreliability.
Now the torch is passed to Jarry, who has posted a .914 save percentage in 62 games over the last four seasons. The Penguins on Oct. 3 signed the 25-year-old to a three-year contract with an annual average value of $3.5 million.
A reunion with Fleury, who could be on the outs in Vegas, seems unlikely. Veteran Casey DeSmith, who spent all of 2019-20 in the American Hockey League, remains under contract and will likely be Jarry's backup next season.
The Senators selected Gruden, a 20-year-old Michigan native, in the fourth round of the 2018 draft. The forward spent last season with the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League, scoring 30 goals with 36 assists in 59 games.
Wednesday's trade leaves the Penguins with just nine players from their most recent Stanley Cup win in 2017. Patric Hornqvist was dealt to the Florida Panthers on Sept. 24. That list should be trimmed to seven soon, as Justin Schultz and Conor Sheary are unrestricted free agents who are not expected back.
As time goes on, fewer and fewer of these playoff heroes will remain. They'll all move on eventually, even the pair of future Hall of Famers in Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Memories will be the only things left behind then.
They wouldn't be as magical without Murray, the lanky rookie puck-stopper who seemingly played without a pulse to help lead the Penguins back to glory.
