The Toronto Maple Leafs solved their biggest problem (Matt Murray) and did one over on their biggest rival at the same time.
This week, the Toronto Maple Leafs announced that they were placing frequently injured goalie Matt Murray on the LTIR, which basically gets the team out of his nearly $5 million cap-hit.
The Leafs now have two solid starting goalies (arguably the best pairing in the league) for roughly what they were going to be paying Matt Murray.
To put it another way, the Leafs just cut the cap hit of their most important position in half.
And people are not happy!
Toronto Maple Leafs Matt Murray Move Is Clearly Legit
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: poorly informed people are angry about something completely legitimate.
Besides angering hockey’s most poorly informed fans (which is always funny) the Matt Murray moves comes with an additional bonus: it screws over the Ottawa Senators.
The Leafs GOT PAID 2 x draft picks (one of which they used to get Luke Schenn) to take Matt Murray. Murray played solidly for them when needed and when healthy.
Now they get out of his deal with no consequences, and Ottawa is still paying him!
Kyle Dubas, you’ve done it again! Honestly, the Murray move worked out perfectly. I said it was a no-risk move and it turns out I was right.
Have seen questions about what happens to Ottawa’s portion of Matt Murray’s contract now that Toronto has placed him on LTIR.@CapFriendly confirms Murray’s $1.562 M hit still counts against Ottawa’s cap for 2023-24.
— Ian Mendes (@ian_mendes) July 26, 2023
Only relief for Ottawa would have come via buyout/retirement.
Had the Leafs bought out Murray, the Senators would have gotten out of the cap-hit. If he retired, same thing.
But Murray still wants to come back and play one day, and he’s not even 30.
This is an amazing outcome for the Toronto Maple Leafs, as well as one that is completely above board and beyond criticism.
How do I know?
Common sense.
There are several main things that suggest that this is completely legitimate.
One, it will be extremely hard for Matt Murray to resume his NHL career at age 30 after taking a year off. He wouldn’t do this unless he absolutely had to.
Two, if Matt Murray wasn’t actually too injured to be counted on, he himself would complain. The Leafs can’t force him to go on the LTIR if he doesn’t want to, and he could easily afford a lawyer if this were the case.
Matt Murray doesn’t owe the Leafs anything, and he gets paid either way. However, playing in the NHL Is an extreme privilege and no one would pass up the chance to do so if they could.
Three, the NHL is run by lawyers. Those lawyers are constantly on guard for teams breaking the rules. The Toronto Maple Leafs have been in trouble for hosting practices at illegal times/venues – do people actually think a league that enforces such minor rules is going to let something major like salary cap circumvention slide?
In the past, teams like Tampa (Kucherov), Boston (Hall) and Vegas (Stone) have sat players on the LTIR while using the cap-relief to go way over the cap for the playoffs where there is no cap. Then, the player in question is suddenly healthy for game 1.
Those moves are much more suspicious than what the Leafs have done, but when teams complained, the NHL investigated and did not punish the teams. Therefore we must accept that those teams met the requirements of the NHL’s investigation.
The Leafs know this, and they aren’t stupid. They clearly wouldn’t do this unless both Matt Murray and the NHL were OK with it. The fact that they are clearly shows the move is legit.
The fact it lowers the amount of money their division rivals can now spend is just the cherry on top.