The Calgary Flames have released veteran defenseman Douglas Murray from his professional tryout contract, the team announced on Friday.
Murray last grabbed NHL time in the 2013-14 season, spending last season in the German DEL where he played just eight games for the Cologne Sharks.
A veteran of 518 NHL games, he spent all but two of his nine NHL seasons with the San Jose Sharks, who drafted him in the 8th round of the 1999 NHL Entry Draft.
In his last NHL season, he played 58 games for the Montreal Canadiens, scoring zero goals and two assists.
With this transaction we may have seen the last of the 35-year-old in the NHL. (Though there are desperate teams out there.) That seems particularly likely seeing the progression of his numbers over the years. Murray has never posted a positive score-adjusted CF%Rel.
That’s not a great stat to start, but the progression has been ugly, with his worst three marks coming in his last three seasons and with two of those seasons coming in below a -6% mark. His 58-game stint with Montreal saw him hit a -6.3% score-adjusted CF%Rel even while getting a ridiculously good 7.4% ZSO%Rel.
Lots of familiar names have taken PTOs this season. Keep up with all the tryout contracts with The Hockey Writers’ 2015 PTO Tracker.