Toronto Maple Leafs Trade for Matt Murray (Finally)

After a long buildup, the Toronto Maple Leafs finally got Matt Murray Monday night, and the results were, to say the least, underwhelming.

The Toronto Maple Leafs were able to get the Senators to retain just 25% of Murray’s cap-hit, and in exchange for taking on his overpriced contract for the next two years they received a 2023 3rd round pick, and a 2024 7th round pick.

The Leafs are getting paid two draft picks to take on a goalie who has two Stanley Cups and is just 28, so there is nothing wrong with the deal, it just would have been nice if the Senators ate the full 50%.

Murray’s cap-hit will be $4.68 million. 

The Toronto Maple Leafs Trade for Matt Murray

I think that this is ultimately a pretty low risk play for the Leafs.

Matt Murray has been so injury plagued that if he isn’t playing well, it shouldn’t be too difficult to put him on the LTIR and recoup most of his cap-hit.

As someone with decent NHL career numbers and two Stanley Cups, and who is still just 28, there is considerable upside here.

If the Leafs could pair him with another relatively cheap goalie who also has some upside, they could then have a decent set of goalies for less than most competitive teams are spending on goalies.

A good candidate here would Ilya Samsonov who was not qualified by the Capitals and is now a free-agent.  His last contract was for one year and $2 million dollars, and if the Leafs could land him on a similar contract, they could have a pretty intriguing pair of goalies.

Right now I think this is a hard trade to review.  The Leafs clearly have to make corresponding movers before we can judge what they are doing.

For example, if they just got Matt Murray to be their uncontested starter, then they’re absolutely nuts.  But what other goalie they end up with and what they do with the rest of their salary cap money is going to make the difference.

For all we know they just wanted the draft picks in exchange for paying the real money and plan to somehow flip him or just permanently put him on the IR.

I really thought they’d fold on the “goalies don’t matter that much because they are random” philosophy and pursue a name-brand goalie to try and insolate their young team from more failure.

I think it’s interesting that they didn’t, but not really surprising, after-all, they’ve pretty much gone their own way the entire time they’ve been in charge.

If there is one thing I think that makes this trade good it’s that  whoever they might have signed otherwise probably doesn’t any better probability of being a difference maker compared to Matt Murray, who at least comes with two free assets.

Maybe the critics are wrong and Dubas is completely crazy and has no idea what he’s doing.  Personally, I think he’s done a lot of great stuff that doesn’t get appreciated properly due to an unlucky set off playoff results that aren’t necessarily indicative of how good this team actually is.  Having said that, I give him the benefit of the doubt on this somewhat whacky trade, at least until I see how it plays out.

Certainly I don’t see how you can lose a trade, or complain about it, when you get a 2 x Stanley Cup winning goalie who is 28 and you get paid for it.