Yahoo Sports ‘My Hips Haven’t Felt This Good In A Long, Long Time’: Maple Leafs Goaltender Matt Murray on His One-Year ‘Prove It’ Deal and Renewed Optimism After Bilateral Hip Surgery
The 2024-25 season represents a fresh start for Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Matt Murray.
At the end of September 2023, the club announced Murray underwent successful bilateral hip surgery, a procedure that would keep him sidelined for a minimum of six to eight months and place him on the long-term injured reserve list at the beginning of the season. This injury is just one of several physical setbacks Murray, a Thunder Bay native, has faced during his tenure with Toronto, including issues with his abductor, ankle, and head.
It’s been a long road to recovery.
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On Monday, Murray appeared on the Slangin’ the Bizkit Podcast with host Travis Ridgen to discuss his journey and determination over the past year, including his decision to finally address significant hip pain that had persisted since his days with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins at age 20.
“I’ve dealt with hip pain going back to as far as Wilkes-Barre when I was like 20 or 21,” he recounted. “It just got to a point where it was starting to mess up everything else. I was starting to get low back issues, starting to pull my groin a lot, and starting to get a lot of ankle stuff.”
“It just became a point where you try to get to the root of the problem, which in goaltending, for the most part, tends to be the hips. That’s kind of what steers the ship, I would say. It’s the most in-demand part of the body playing in goal. I just figured it was time to get those fixed up and get a nice little reset.”
At 30 years old, undergoing surgery on both hips simultaneously was a daunting decision, but Murray felt it was the right move at this stage of his career. “Getting both of them done at the same time was definitely a lot early on, for sure, but it definitely cut down my recovery time,” Murray explained.
“As far as my career went, I don’t know if there was a better time to do it. If you do it at the wrong time, it can really hinder your career. If you do it at the wrong time you can take yourself out of it, just at the worst time,” he said. “I’m a believer that everything happens for a reason, and I think the timing worked out really well.”
After missing the entirety of the 2023-24 season with the Leafs, Murray played in three games for the AHL’s Toronto Marlies toward the end of the 2023-24 season, helping them secure a playoff berth. He posted a 1-2-0 record with a .846 save percentage and a 4.03 goals-against average.
“Most people didn’t think I’d play in any games at all last year, and I was able to play a little bit at the end of the season on a conditioning stint. That was a big goal of mine, and we definitely had to push it but it felt nice to get it done and play a couple of games at the end of the year,” Murray said.
The effort has paid off. As a result, Murray reports that his hips are healthier than they’ve been in a long time. “My hips haven’t felt this good in a long, long time. That was the goal, and that was the hope of getting the surgery done. It’s starting to pay off now. It’s starting to feel really, really good,” he stated.
As an unrestricted free agent on July 1, the goaltender inked a one-year, $875,000 deal to return to Toronto, aiming to rebound from a challenging period plagued by hip pain and injuries. Since his acquisition in July 2022, Murray has only appeared in 26 regular season games for the Leafs. The one-year deal represents a ‘prove-it’ contract for the two-time Stanley Cup champion.
“This year is just about proving that I can stay healthy and that I got a nice little reset with the surgery, so proving that I can stay healthy and get the job done,” Murray said.
“That’s why I took a one-year deal and it’s kind of like a ‘prove it’ deal to see what I can do and see if I can do both of those things: stay healthy and prove I can still get the job done.”
Related: Report: Maple Leafs Sign Goaltender Matt Murray to One-Year, $875,000 Contract
Murray’s affection for Toronto plays a significant role in his renewed optimism. Despite occasional frustrations with the traffic (which he joked about), he has a deep appreciation for the city and the organization. Although he wasn’t a ‘die-hard’ Leafs fan growing up, his father supported the team, and Murray attended his first ever in-person NHL game in Toronto as a kid. From an organizational standpoint, over his rocky tenure, the staff has been crucial in helping him regain his footing over the past two years.
“I love everything about the city, other than the traffic,” Murray joked. “It’s a great city; I think it’s a top city in the world. I know I haven’t really traveled all that much necessarily, but I think it’s a great city. The group of guys in the room is unbelievable, the staff there is unbelievable, the training staff. There was a lot of turnover at times, but usually, the training staff and that group of people tend to stay the same, and they nailed it with the group of people they have here.”
“The way that we’re treated here, the facilities are great, it’s close to home for me, which is obviously really nice,” Murray added. “I could go on and on about why I like playing here, but the Leafs definitely have a special place in my heart.”
“I felt very fortunate to get the opportunity to sign another one-year [contract] here and stay right where I want to be.”
Over the past nine months, the Leafs’ training staff has been instrumental in guiding the netminder through a challenging period. As he mentions, the road back from such a serious procedure has been demanding, but week by week, he has progressed from crutches to reaching milestones like returning to the ice for the first time.
“The first stretch was certainly the hardest. Having both done at the same time it was tough to walk,” Murray explained. “I was able to walk out of there the next day with two crutches, very slowly and with a lot of help, but never needed a wheelchair or anything like that. Then just a lot of rest for the first 12 or so days. I was on crutches, I want to say, for the first four or five weeks, and then slow increments after that.”
“Some of the big milestones were getting back on the ice for the first time around four months post-surgery, just with a tracksuit and skates and just kind of wheeling around out there. After such a long time, it was exhilarating for me to get back on the ice,” he claimed. “Even just in a tracksuit and I had like player gloves, a player stick, and a helmet with a visor – it felt like I was playing forward out there. I made the most of it, I had a lot of fun in that stretch, for sure.”
It wasn’t until around five months post-surgery that Murray donned his goalie gear and spent a couple of weeks re-learning his movements before ramping up to working on his butterfly technique and facing shots.
“I think I did that for a month, four weeks in a tracksuit, and then I was able to put my gear on for around five months post-surgery,” he recalled. “I think I’ve got these timelines right; it all kind of blended into this one big period of time. I was just standing up, no butterfly, no pucks, you’re just skating for three weeks or so. I was then able to try butterfly, around five and a half months, slowly ramp up from there, start taking shots.”
With recurring ankle and groin issues, Murray felt he was becoming injured far too often. Leading back to the root problem, he was compensating other areas of his body for quite some time. Now, since making a full recovery, he’s been skating since the conclusion of the 2023-24 campaign and throughout the summer without any issues.
With all eyes on the future, Murray is moving full steam ahead in 2024-25. Now that he has signed a one-year pact with the Leafs, he could be a fit behind Joseph Woll and Anthony Stolarz as a depth option.
“When your hips stop working properly, you compensate in other areas for sure. I think that was probably something that was going on but again, I don’t know anything. I’m not smart enough to know anything about that. I just knew that I was getting hurt too much on plays that I felt I really shouldn’t be getting hurt on,” Murray explained to Ridgen.
“I felt it had something to do with alignment and obviously that I was compensating for the pain in my hips elsewhere. So yeah, I just decided to finally pull the trigger and get it done. Happy I did,” he added.
“I’ve been skating now – I guess that first skate with the full gear, five months post, would have been like February or something like that. I skated a bunch at the end of the year, skating a bunch this summer, and as of now (knocks on wood), no issues, and we’re looking to keep that going.”
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