Could the Toronto Maple Leafs Be Sticking With Matt Murray?

Could Matt Murray stick with the Toronto Maple Leafs?

General Manager Brad Treliving of the Toronto Maple Leafs held a pre-draft media availability yesterday.

Obviously, topics like Matthews, Nylander, Keefe and Treliving’s availability at the NHL Draft were the highlights of discussion. Interestingly, however, was that the Leafs goaltending situation was just glossed over.

Matt Murray has been a big topic of discussion ever since joining the  Leafs. Ultimately he played some solid hockey games and some poor hockey games, but the biggest issue with him was that he seemed to rarely be healthy enough to start.

Murray still has a lot of the tools of a good goaltender, but ultimately paying over $4M of a tight cap hit to an injury prone goaltender isn’t the best use of cap space.

Matt Murray May Return to the Toronto Maple Leafs

With this said, here’s what Treliving had to say when asked about Murray:

"“Well I mean Matt Murray is a good goalie. I think the biggest challenge has been availability; in terms of injuries. How I look at right now is we have 3 really good goaltenders. You got Joe the young guy; he finished off well. I’ve learned sometimes the young guys that finish off well doesn’t necessarily mean the start is going to be well….. It’s a position we’ve got good depth in. Like anything else, we’d be open to looking at different things, but at the end of the day if we go to camp and have 3 good goalies, then ‘good for us’ is how I look at it."

Now we have to keep in mind that last year Dubas had some nice words said about Mrazek before trading him shortly after, so these comments could be used to try and boost his value, but ultimately it doesn’t look like Treliving is opposed to the idea of keeping Murray around for the final year of his contract.

Ultimately there’s 3 main options with Murray. Buy him out, trade him or keep him. Buying him out is too costly, trading him is doable with some of these cap dumps being cheaper lately, but if anyone is demanding the 28th overall pick it’s not worth it.

Maybe the Leafs end up backed into a corner where they are forced to keep Murray, but I surely hope it doesn’t come at the cost of Woll or Samsonov. Starting the season with 3 goalies could work, especially if we are assuming Murray will end up on LTIR.