The Toronto Maple Leafs had an opportunity to set their team up for success with secure goaltending this offseason but instead traded for Matt Murray.
Matt Murray is an accomplished goaltender with two Stanley Cup ring’s but his previous success hasn’t translated in current triumph with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
With a $4.68M cap-hit for one more season, it’s possible that Murray has played his last game with the Leafs.
On Sunday night, in a meaningless game against the Detroit Red Wings, Murray was accidentally taken down by forward Lucas Raymond and is now day-to-day with a head injury.
Toronto Maple Leafs and Matt Murray
If this were anything but a head injury, I’d assume that the Leafs would try to get Murray one more start before the playoffs, but they need to be as cautious as possible. Also, with Joseph Woll eager to make the full-time leap from the AHL to NHL, this is a great opportunity for him to gain valuable experience.
When the Leafs originally traded for Murray, I was an optimistic fan but I also understood the risk. However, it feels like Kyle Dubas’ past experience blurred his vision of what Murray’s future would look like.
During his days with the Soo Greyhounds, Murray was one of the best goalies in the OHL and that continued through the ranks until he was starting games for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Murray won two Stanley Cup’s early into his career and the thought of this player being a future Hall-of-Famer and starter for Team Canada was a true possibility.
That may sound hard to believe now, knowing how Murray’s career has gone, but it’s true. Murray was a prodigy and a huge reason to the Penguins’ success, but like many players, it wasn’t sustainable for an entire career.
With a 14-8-2 record, Murray hasn’t been terrible this season but he hasn’t been great. His 3.01 GAA and .903 SV% would rank him around the 30th best goalie in the league right now, but we all knew his regular season stats didn’t matter as much.
The entire reasoning behind trading for Murray was for his playoff success, but now that he’s injured, it looks like the Leafs won’t even be able to see “Playoff-Murray” any more.
We all knew that Murray’s stats have worsened, but his health was the biggest concern and that’s coming to fruition right now at the worst possible time. There are just some players who are unfortunately injury-prone and that’s where Murray’s career would fit.
Lucky for Toronto, they still have Ilya Samsonov who seems good enough to lead this team to victory and if something crazy happened with him, at least they have Woll.
I’m not saying that Woll could guide the Leafs to a Stanley Cup victory, but we’ve seen unknown rookies like Cam Ward, Jordan Binnington and even Murray in the past get on a hot-streak and win a championship.
It’s unfortunate that Murray’s season went how many pessimist’s predicted but this was a risk Dubas knew going into the season and it ultimately backfired.