Do the Pens play better in front of Murray?

This morning, a friend said to me that the Pens were defending better in front of Murray than they were in front of Fleury. This immediately piqued my interest as not only a talking point, but also as something that we could actually dig into further with advanced stats. Many people, including Coach Sullivan, have praised Murray's calm demeanor in net and its theoretical effect on the team in front of him, but is there any substance to it?

So after that conversation with my friend, I headed over to Corsica Hockey and started digging. I looked at how the Pens were doing at controlling attempts, shots, and scoring chances in games started by Fleury and Murray. I did exclude the November 16th Washington game because Murray left early and I didn't have time to parse the data for each goaltender.

To be clear, I do not track or calculate any of my own advanced stats. I am, however, a big believer in using them to gain a deeper understanding of what is happening on the ice and to unravel or confirm my own suspicions, biases, etc. This seemed like a good time to do just that.

First, a look at some raw numbers for the team at 5v5 with each goaltender:

	CF	CA	CF%	SF	SA	SF%	SCF	SCA	SCF%
Fleury	612	588	51.0	340	327	50.97	89	87	50.56
Murray	252	226	52.71	145	118	55.13	57	35	61.95

And a different look; this time at the rates the team is allowing attempts, shots, and scoring chances:

	CA60	SA60	SCA60
Fleury	57.57	32.01	8.52
Murray	48.51	25.33	7.51

In regards to the question of whether or not the team plays better in front of Murray, the answer seems to be "Yes!" They control play better, especially in the scoring chances category. And they allow fewer attempts, shots, and scoring chances against per 60 when Murray is in the net.

Some of the disparities are so sharp, I thought that maybe Murray was drawing the easier competition. But the average CF% and SCF% of teams Murray has started against are 49.79 and 51.43 respectively. For Fleury, those numbers are 49.74 and 50.67. So there's really not much of a difference there.

Of course, this is not a perfect analysis. I'm looking at 13 games from Fleury, only 5 from Murray; that screams "Small Sample Size". Additionally, it doesn't take into account the effect Crosby's injury had on the lineup to start the year or other potential factors, like back-to-back games.

But for me, it does provide some weight to the idea that the team is performing better in front of one goaltender over the other.

If you're not convinced, I understand. There's reason to be skeptical and the "Murray or Fleury" debate seems far from over.

But as I was doing this research, I stumbled upon some numbers I thought were worth sharing:

	LDSV	MDSV	HDSV
Fleury	97.9	95.14	77.33
Murray	100	100	81.48

Those are the Save Percentages for each goalie when faced with Low Danger, Medium Danger, and High Danger shots. As you can see, Murray is outperforming Fleury in each category.

Again, not perfect, small sample size, other factors, etc. But, in my mind, these help to support the belief that Murray should be starting more games than Fleury. They appear to play better in front of him, and Murray is playing better behind them. And, if nothing else, the increased sample size will help us determine if these numbers are legitimate or not.