OTTAWA, Ontario -- Remember when Matt Murray looked like one of the best goaltenders in the NHL?
Turns out that it really doesn't require much of a memory.
You don't have to go back to the 2016 playoffs, when he earned 15 of the Penguins' 16 victories during their run to the franchise's fourth Stanley Cup.
And there's no need to summon recollections of Games 5 and 6 of the Stanley Cup final against the Predators a year later, when Nashville launched a total of 51 shots at Murray. And he stopped all 51 of them.
The plain truth is, simply assessing Murray's play for the Senators over the past few weeks makes the case for the state of his game rather emphatically.
Murray, who is expected to face his former team for the first time when the Penguins play Ottawa Thursday at 7:08 p.m. at Canadian Tire Center, is 5-0-2 in his past seven starts.
And he's getting better as he goes along.
Murray has faced 133 shots in his past four appearances; exactly five of those have gotten past him.
Sure, that's a limited sample size, but a save percentage of .962 is pretty impressive, whether it covers four games or four months. (It is higher, by the way, than that of any goalie who has made four or more appearances this season.)
Considering the difficulties Murray has faced since coming to Ottawa, including a stint with the Senators' American Hockey League affiliate earlier this season, some might be surprised that his game has reached such a rarefied level.
Odds are that the guys who played with him a few years ago -- and who figure to go against him Thursday -- are not in that group, because they have seen how Murray can perform when his game is in order.
"It seems like he's doing great now," Bryan Rust said Wednesday. "He's bounced back, found his game a little bit."
Yeah, just a bit.
Naturally, the Penguins will be intent on doing significant damage to both Murray's personal statistics and his growing confidence, at least for one night.
"It's obviously good for him," Rust said. "But we'll see how it goes tomorrow night."
Regardless, they have a full appreciation of how effective Murray can be when his game is in order.
"Obviously, we have a lot of respect for Matt and how capable he is," Mike Sullivan said. "He's a real solid goaltender and was a huge part of the Stanley Cups that we enjoyed here during Matt's time."
Indeed, the Penguins can only hope that the Murray they'll confront Thursday doesn't perform the way he did during their two most recent championship drives.
He went 22-9 during the springs of 2016 and 2017, and was a major contributor to those Cups.
"He stepped in there with unwavering confidence and won a lot of games with us," Rust said. "Was kind of that backstop for us."
Those titles appeared to cement Murray's status as the Penguins' goaltender of the future, although then-GM Jim Rutherford actually struck a deal for the Golden Knights to claim Marc-Andre Fleury in the 2017 expansion draft even before the Cup was clinched that year.
Three years later, however, Murray was traded to Ottawa after being supplanted by Tristan Jarry for the final game of their preliminary-round playoff loss to the Canadiens.
He struggled during his Ottawa debut n 2020-21, going 5-6-2, with a 3.38 goals-against average and .893 save percentage, and wasn't in synch earlier this season, either.
That has changed in recent weeks, however, and Murray looks as if he can become the cornerstone of Ottawa's rebuilding program that he was acquired to be.
Thursday night, however, will be a first-of-its-kind chapter in the story of his career revival, if Murray takes on guys with whom he won championships, and who he faced in so many practices over five years.
So, will the Penguins try to exploit the glove hand that caused Murray so much trouble as his time with the Penguins was winding down? Or does Murray have, say, special insight on Sidney Crosby that will make it impossible for Crosby to record goal No. 500 in that game?
Who, if anyone, does all that familiarity favor?
That's hard to say.
Perhaps no one.
"He knows our guys," Sullivan said. "Our guys know him. I'm not sure anyone has an advantage in that one."
