Toronto Maple Leafs: Three Destinations to Trade Matt Murray

Chicago Blackhawks

General Manager Kyle Davidson was very busy this past week with some interesting moves.

He acquired and signed veterans Corey Perry and Nick Foligno for way over market value contracts, while also adding Taylor Hall and his $6M cap hit.

These were definitely some head-scratching moves.

Further to that, the Chicago GM acquired Josh Bailey only to buy out his contract.

Heading into the 2023-24 season it does not appear that the Blackhawks are going to be a playoff team, but it looks like Davidson wants his team to at least be competitive to get the right type of culture around Connor Bedard.

This makes sense, since when the Blackhawks were one of the teams that won the Stanley Cup while their best players were on entry-level deals.  They know the advantages having a player like Bedard on a cheap deal can bring.

At the current time, Chicago has just one NHL goalie signed which is Petr Mrazek who stayed relatively healthy last season appearing in 39 games.

With not many goalies left on the open market, Davidson may be looking to add a goalie to get through the season and Murray may be able to help get them 30-35 games.

It’s possible the Leafs and Hawks could work something out for Murray.

Buffalo Sabres

The Buffalo Sabres are one of the teams on the rise and after a couple of decades of futility, they may finally be looking at the playoffs.

Right now, Buffalo has 27-year old Eric Comrie signed to one more year at $1.7M, however he has played even less games that Murray over the last couple of years.

The Sabres do have two young goalies in Devon Levi and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen that could be their goalies of the future, but if they are going with those two into the season they are putting a lot of pressure on them.

The 24-year old Luukkonen struggled last season after playing in 33 games posting an .892 save percentage and Levi has just seven games of professional hockey experience.

The Sabres could go into the season hoping Comrie stays healthy and let the two young guys battle for the second spot, but bringing in Murray could help them get through one more year.

The Sabres don’t have a ton of cap space, but they may be more interested in Murray as an actual option than for any cap reasons.

Murray would give them insurance while they game-tested their young goalies.

Winnipeg Jets

This is where things can get very creative for Treliving.

The Winnipeg Jets are in a retool and it has been speculated throughout the media that they are looking to find a trade partner for Connor Hellebuyck.

One of two things could happen here, the first is that the Toronto Maple Leafs could look at acquiring the Vezina candidate at which point part of the deal could be that Winnipeg takes Murray.

Winnipeg could also take Ilya Samsonov as the main piece in the deal and use him as their future number one goalie.  With their recent signing of Lauren Brossoit, having Murray and Samsonov could prove to be a bit of a conundrum, but with the organization going through a retool they could handle it for a year.

If the Maple Leafs did the deal, they could decide to just use Hellebuyck as a one-year rental until they hand over the team to Woll.

This also gives them time to decide if they want to commit to the current Jets star goalie long term.

The other option with Winnipeg is that they get a better package for Hellebuyck and at which point they will need a second goalie to go with Brossoit to get them through the year.  In this scenario, the Maple Leafs offload Murray to Winnipeg and go with the tandem of Samsonov and Woll for the year.

Either way, the Jets could be the best trading option for Toronto.