Matt Murray Out For Season

 

Photo From Editor in Leaf 

Raise your hand if you’re surprised but this afternoon the Toronto Maple Leafs announced that goalie Matt Murray has been placed on Long Term Injury Reserve and will miss the entire upcoming season. Matt Murray had a decent start to his career in the NHL winning two cups as a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins but after those cups, the words Murray and injured always seemed to come up. Matt would then go on and sign a long-term contract with Ottawa, but injuries would continue to follow him. In his final season with Ottawa Murray appeared in just twenty games with a record of 5-12-2. Last summer when Kyle Dubas was still in charge the Leafs worked out a trade and Murray joined the Leafs. Now, I like so many people were very skeptical of this move from Kyle because every hockey fan knows of Matt Murray’s injury trouble and things didn’t get off to the greatest of starts as the morning of Toronto’s third regular season game Matt Murray would injure himself in the morning skate and miss some time. However, when Murray was 100% healthy, he was decent in goal for the Leafs. He appeared in 26 games for the Blue and White and finished with a record of 14-8-2. Murray was brought in by Dubas with the hopes of him being the Leafs starting goalie for most of the regular season and then playoffs, but anyone who has followed Matt’s career knew that wasn’t going to happen. Matt would suffer a concussion on April 2^nd against Detroit, which drew criticism from former Leaf Nick Kypreos, who ripped into Kyle Dubas for trading for him on his radio show. I get the criticism, but Murray suffered the injury after the Red Wing player lost an edge and fell into him. It wasn’t like he planned on getting the concussion and Nick shouldn’t have said anything. His career ended after getting knocked out in a fight because he didn’t know you’re supposed to avoid getting punched in the head.

When Brad Treliving took over as general manager everyone believed that Matt Murray would be a likely buyout candidate when the offseason started. The first window came and went, and Leaf fans started to wonder why it didn’t happen. Then speculation started to build about a potential trade in the works. I didn’t think a trade was likely because teams would want a prospect in return as a sweetener and it was doubtful that the Leaf brass would take that approach. Then finally came the salary arbitration hearing for Ilya Samsonov the other day that saw him be awarded a 1 year 3.55 million dollars. With that solved it gave Toronto a 2^nd buyout opportunity which opened today. If Murray was bought out the Leafs would have had 2.6 million dollars in dead cap money over the next two years but placing him on LTIR frees up the entire 4.6-million-dollar salary for the Leafs which is more beneficial to them because at one point Toronto was close to nine million dollars over the cap limit.

I feel bad for Murray because he’s still young being just 29 years old but like Jake Muzzin who will likely be on LTIR if he hasn’t been placed there already, Injuries have likely brought the end to both of their careers. Murray will undoubtedly receive criticism from Leaf Supporters and anyone against Toronto, but it isn’t fair because this guy wanted his time with Toronto to go smoothly sadly it seems that Matt’s body is shutting down on him.

That’s all for this one thanks as always for reading and of course if this is in fact the end of Murray’s time with the Leafs then thank you for your time here.