CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- It has been a spring of unimaginable success for Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Matt Murray. The unflappable native of Thunder Bay, Ontario, has vanquished former Vezina Trophy winner Henrik Lundqvist and current Vezina favorite Braden Holtby in the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Now, after going 7-2 with a 2.05 goals-against average and .935 save percentage and still two weeks shy of his 22nd birthday, Murray will face another Vezina nominee in Ben Bishop of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
I had a chance to chat with Murray in advance of the Eastern Conference finals, which start Friday, 8 p.m. ET, in Pittsburgh.
ESPN.com: Do you remember your first set of pads?
Murray: Like, ever? I remember that the first time I played goalie, I used a rental set. And because I didn't know how to get dressed, my parents put them on the wrong way. I could hardly move. I was basically just lying on my side the whole game. That's what I remember the most.
ESPN.com: How old were you?
Murray: Oh, man. I would have been like 7, probably -- 6 or 7.
ESPN.com: What made you want to be a goalie?
Murray: It was probably that I used to love playing catch when I was a kid. So I think the glove -- and that chance to catch pucks -- definitely had a lot to do with me wanting to be a goalie. As I got older, I started to watch Patrick Roy. He was one of my favorites. And Marty Brodeur. The way they played, they looked like they were having so much fun out there.
ESPN.com: Did you always play goal?
Murray: No. When I was 10 years old, we had the double-A house league and you had to sign up for tryouts. The two years leading up to that I would switch every game, so I would be a goalie one game and then play defense the next game. We had another goalie on our team, so we would just switch like that every game -- and I kind of liked playing both. So when I was 10, I tried to apply for both [goalie and defense], but they said, 'No, you have to pick one.' So I don't know what it was that swung me toward being a goalie, but I chose goalie and stuck with it. And here we are.
Check out this stance. pic.twitter.com/RP7JMz8Z
— Matthew Murray (@mattmurray_30) March 25, 2012
ESPN.com: Did your parents have any influence? Because sometimes parents are like, 'Goalie? Oh no.'
Murray: My parents were unbelievably supportive. I can't thank them enough. You can't even imagine how much money it costs to play triple-A hockey in Thunder Bay, because it's a 100 percent travel team, so you have to pay for all the flights and all the hotels -- and that's kind of combined into one lump payment at the start of the season. It's a crazy amount of money. My parents paid that. I played five years of triple-A, so my parents paid that for five years in a row and never once complained about the equipment. Never once complained about paying so much money for me to play. It's crazy how supportive they were.
ESPN.com: Were you aware of that commitment as you were growing up or was it sort of after the fact?
Murray: It's something I definitely didn't appreciate fully when I was a kid because I'm so young. I played triple-A from 11 to 15, so I wasn't really aware of what money was worth, I guess. And how much the pads actually cost, because I would never see the number. My parents would just take care of it. And then, as I started to get older, I realized how much this stuff costs. It's crazy. There are probably so many hockey players who could have played triple-A hockey but didn't just because their parents couldn't afford it. Especially in Thunder Bay. So I'm eternally grateful to my parents for doing that.
ESPN.com: What do your parents do?
Murray: My dad's a lawyer. He has his own law firm in town, and my mom does bookkeeping for a bunch of businesses around town.
ESPN.com: One of the interesting things about goaltenders is the repetitive nature of what you do. How important is the routine to you? Do you love it, or are you like, 'Oh my, not more shots, not more side-to-sides?'
Murray: I think you have to respect the routine to a certain extent, but I definitely try and change things up all the time. Because you come to the rink and do the exact same thing every day, you're going to start to love it a little bit less and less every day. I'm motivated by love for the game, so I always try to keep things interesting, and I switch up my routines all the time. I'm not superstitious or anything, so I don't really worry about that. I just try to just have fun with it and, if you just do the same thing over and over again, it gets less and less fun. I definitely switch things up all the time.
ESPN.com: Is there a drill that you especially hate?
Murray: There are a couple, to be honest. They're usually ones where there's shot after shot and they come so quick that there's really no chance for you to even get up and square up to the next shot, so it's just annoying. You're making the save on the first one -- he's playing the rebound, and the other guy's already shooting it back door. But it's all in good fun. I just love competing out there.
