Matt Murray's one win away from the Stanley Cup.
His next spring win, should it come, will also put the Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender into the NHL record books. It would be his 15th, tying him with Patrick Roy, Ron Hextall, and Cam Ward for the most wins in a postseason by a rookie 'tender. Heady company.
Murray turned 22 on May 25, during his miraculous playoff run. He's been stellar in the Penguins' crease, seemingly too young to understand the magnitude of his situation. He has a .925 save percentage, stopping 495 of 535 shots he's faced, and one shutout. He's won 14 of 19 starts. He's a legitimate Conn Smythe Trophy candidate.
Yet Murray's numbers, impressive on their own, also serve as a reminder of how incredible Roy was for the Montreal Canadiens in the spring of 1986, when he won 15 of 20 starts to lead the Habs to the Cup.
Roy finished the playoffs with a .923 save percentage, having stopped 467 of 506 shots he faced. He had one shutout and a 1.92 goals-against average. The difference between Murray and Roy is the era in which Roy's heroics occurred.
During the 1985-86 regular season, 3.97 goals were scored per game. In 2015-16, that number was 2.71. In '85-86, Wayne Gretzky won the Art Ross Trophy with 215 points. The league's 10th-place scorer had 105 points.
Sure, games always tighten up during the playoffs. Doug Gilmour led the league in scoring in the postseason with 21 points in 19 games. Mats Naslund was Montreal's leading scorer, with 19 points in 20 games. But the numbers that most clearly show how good Roy was may be Hextall's stats from the 1987 playoffs, when the Philadelphia Flyers lost the Stanley Cup Final in seven games to the Edmonton Oilers.
Hextall won 15 games, but finished the postseason with a .908 save percentage in 26 contests.
Roy's counterpart in the crease in the 1986 Cup Final was the Calgary Flames' Mike Vernon, who had a .897 save percentage in 21 games when all was said and done.
Roy put up Murray-esque numbers in arguably the highest-scoring era hockey's ever seen. It's unlikely there will ever be another such performance.
