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The Fantastically Beautiful Joyously Superfun 22-23 Season Celebration Thread

Last thing I'll see re:conkies is this

With Murray's known head injury record, and with what we know about the effect of repeated head injuries on all brain function, it would be fucking shocking if he was still at peak function and his general decline was due to being "fragile" or some other shit, when he was a pretty consistent 50 game a season guy for most of his life before age 26 and has had no catatrophic injuries that didn't involve his head.

Combined GP by season:

12/13: 59
13/14: 58
14/15: 48
15/16: 65
16/17: 60
17/18: 61
18/19: 54
19/20: 41
20/21: 27
21/22: 22
22/23: 26
 
In the end it doesn't matter why he's broken.

he's broken.

not only that, but he's been broken for several years and was not a sane option last summer. the reaction to the move, barring an increasingly less and less likely miracle playoff turnaround, has proven to be the correct one.

in many ways it's as puzzling as the Mrazek move.

and if this is in fact Dubas' last kick at the can here, high up on the postmortem discussion list will be his handling of the game's most important position.
 
MindzEye said:
You mean like the last 4 years?

He has no other known chronic injuries other than "head/neck/concussion" injuries, of which we can be pretty fucking sure that his minimum is 4-5. We know the effects that those have on performance, and that most notable players who retire due to them tend to be in that ~6 range when they call it quits.

I don't want to get lost in the weeds here, the core of my point is pretty simple. If the Leafs are looking to LTIR him next season, there's probably brain injury related reasons to do so. How much of his decline is based on the excessive amount of head injuries he's had is besides my original point.
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I think you know exactly what I mean but are choosing to reframe to better suit your narrative!

again, you seem to have suggested that his decline has been caused by brain injury. but the actual stats don't bear this out. it's entirely possible that brain injury is one or the main factor, but I maintain that we simply don't have the evidence to reach that conclusion though.

you say yourself, at least two concussion by 2018. 2018/19 was the most games he played in any regular season, and .004 off his second best career regular season sv%.

I think it's more accurate to say that Murray entered the NHL and went fucking gangbusters, putting up his best career seasons in his first two, which is an extremely unorthodox career arc, especially for a goalie. then who the fuck knows if it was the meth, the injuries, mental health, who knows. his career has gone downhill after that. he has had lots of injuries to possibly blame, plus all our jokes about his methadone program. reducing it all to brain injuries is reductionist.

I won't dispute that this recent concussion may prevent him from returning, you never know with a brain injury and the impacts do accumulate. but I just don't see anything to justify writing off the rest of his career due to brain injury at this point.
 
I think it’s a little disingenuous to pat ourselves on the back re: Dubas and goalies this season. It was really fucking risky but our goaltending’s actually been solid this year even when we’ve had stretches of the team sucking and Samsonov’s been really good most of the year. I’m not sure we were exactly right - at least I’ll say I sure wasn’t.
 
Volcanologist said:
In the end it doesn't matter why he's broken.

he's broken.

not only that, but he's been broken for several years and was not a sane option last summer. the reaction to the move, barring an increasingly less and less likely miracle playoff turnaround, has proven to be the correct one.

in many ways it's as puzzling as the Mrazek move.

and if this is in fact Dubas' last kick at the can here, high up on the postmortem discussion list will be his handling of the game's most important position.
Click to expand...
I'm a Murray hater but he's shown flashes of why Dubie believe in and acquired him. pretending otherwise now is revisionist history.
 
Ultimately he picked up 2 projects. One a young-ish goalie with talent and upside and the other, a dick swinging multi cup champion. He gambled that the young skill guy develops some consistency and that the dick swinger regains his form. 1 of 2 working out as well as it has was always best case scenario.

But again, the lack of double retention on Murray is unforgivable. Everything else he did with goaltending has been A-OK with me.
 
in the end Murray has been pretty much what he was in Ottawa, which is probably the reasonable outcome.

so yeah, Dubey folding to ottawa's refusal to go over 25% retention has to be looked at as a mistake, i think. in retrospect even getting him at 50% would probably have been too much factoring in the 2nd year commitment.
 
but anyways, after being a hater, I've seen enough glimpses of the big dig swinging Cup champion to believe he's still in there. whether we can find that guy at any point during the playoffs, and for any length of time, who knows. I'd rate is as unlikely at this point.
 
Wayward DP said:
again, you seem to have suggested that his decline has been caused by brain injury.
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There's no other injury type of his which would explain the pretty obvious decline from his peak.

Wayward DP said:
but the actual stats don't bear this out. it's entirely possible that brain injury is one or the main factor, but I maintain that we simply don't have the evidence to reach that conclusion though.
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I'd say that we have a preponderance of evidence councillor.

I'd argue that the stats do bear this out. Early career he was an obvious stud, and a collection of head injuries later, he's a below average goalie despite being at an age where more goalies are just reaching their primes.

I'm not arguing that's his only injury related issue, but it's absolutely his most serious and chronic injury issue by a lot.
Wayward DP said:
I think it's more accurate to say that Murray entered the NHL and went fucking gangbusters, putting up his best career seasons in his first two, which is an extremely unorthodox career arc, especially for a goalie. then who the fuck knows if it was the meth, the injuries, mental health, who knows.
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You know that this is where I'm going to mention the knockon effects of head injuries often include significant increases in mental health issues and substance abuse, right?
Wayward DP said:
but I just don't see anything to justify writing off the rest of his career due to brain injury at this point.
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Honestly, I think you're trying to not see it. He's pretty clearly cooked as anything more than a backup that you can't rely on, and his head injury record looks really fucking similar to guys who had their careers cut short by them.
 
Wayward DP said:
I'm a Murray hater but he's shown flashes of why Dubie believe in and acquired him. pretending otherwise now is revisionist history.
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Dubie may have had a little more background on Murray's issues in Ottawa, but more likely someone handed him a memo when a former Soo Greyhound hit the waiver/trade block.
 
hockeylover said:
If ROR and Kampf are two of the top 15 shut down Cs in the league and Matthews is Matthews why are our 4 Cs not Matthews, Tavares, ROR, Kampf? 🤷‍♀️
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Not that it means much, but I think if ROR plays on the Tavares line, he's the center. The JT line historically hasn't been the best defensively so I don't hate the idea tbh. As zeke said if they push Bunting or Nylander down a line it could work just fine.
 
hockeylover said:
If ROR and Kampf are two of the top 15 shut down Cs in the league and Matthews is Matthews why are our 4 Cs not Matthews, Tavares, ROR, Kampf? 🤷‍♀️
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I mean they probably are.

And if ROR and JT are on the same line eventually, it's gonna be ROR at C. today he was just filling in for willy.

Also, Acciari probably rates out very well defensively at C too.
 
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