Toronto Maple Leafs Should Shut Down Matt Murray For Season

Should the Toronto Maple Leafs shut down Matt Murray for the rest of the season?

Matt Murray is currently injured, but would it make the most sense for the Toronto Maple Leafs to shut him down for the rest of the season?

Murray, currently in his first year with the Leafs, makes $4.6M AAV for the next two seasons. He’s a former two-time Stanley Cup, but his game has struggled as of late.

Despite the rough patch in Ottawa, GM Kyle Dubas took a chance on him, hoping he would return to his old form. As a former Soo Greyhounds’ player, Dubas was very familiar with him and thought he was buying low on a player with a ton of skill.

For the most part, the Murray experiment has worked, when he’s healthy.

Health has been a huge question-mark for Murray over the years and he’s unfortunately been hit with the injury bug once again this season. He’s only started 19 of a possible 55 games, but as mentioned, within those games, he’s been pretty good.

With less than 30 games left in the season and a playoff berth pretty much locked up, do the Leafs really need Murray right now? Joseph Woll is one of the best goalies in the AHL, so why can’t Toronto get by with him as the back-up?

Ilya Samsonov has clearly emerged as the team’s No. 1 goalie, so it’s not like the team really needs Murray .

The Toronto Maple Leafs Should Shut Down Matt Murray

When the playoffs start, Samsonov is going be in the net for Game 1, unless something crazy happens. As a result, Murray needs to go to “Robidas Island,” so the Leafs can use his $4.68M on another player.

With that type of money on LTIR, the Leafs can get very creative and bring in a player that will make an impact.

Murray is a goalie with known ankle and knee issues, so it won’t even look suspicious when the Leafs shut him down.  It would be impossible for anyone to question that Matt Murray can’t play.

Other teams have done this before and there hasn’t been any issues. Nikita Kucherov famously missed the entire season, then magically showed up for Game 1 of the playoffs in perfect shape, making sure that Tampa Bay stayed under the salary cap for the year, without losing their best forward.

It was boarder-line cheating what they did with Kucherov, but nobody batted an eye and it helped the Lightning reach the Stanley Cup Finals.

The Toronto Maple Leafs should try something similar, but more legitimate, with Murray and take advantage of the system, because that $4.6M could become very useful at the NHL Trade Deadline.