In a trade that had been anticipated for a couple of days now, the Toronto Maple Leafs have acquired goaltender Matt Murray from the Ottawa Senators, both teams announced. Heading to Toronto as well will be a third-round pick in the 2023 NHL Entry Draft and a seventh-round pick in 2024. Ottawa is also retaining 25% of Murray’s salary. In exchange for Murray, Toronto will send “future considerations” to Ottawa. Frank Seravalli of the Daily Faceoff was the first to report that an agreement was in place.
A Murray trade this offseason had almost seemed to be a given, with the question being when and to who. A deal that would send Murray to the Buffalo Sabres appeared to be in place last week until Murray declined via his no-trade clause. The deal now helps to alleviate some of the cap concerns Murray’s contract placed on the Senators, especially in the wake of acquiring Alex DeBrincat from the Chicago Blackhawks who carries a $6.4MM cap hit, but will be due at least a $9MM qualifying offer after next season, and perhaps more if Ottawa wants to keep the sniper long-term. Not only DeBrincat, but Ottawa has been rumored to be interested in playing the free agent market, and shedding even 75% of Murray’s $6.25MM cap hit over the next two seasons will make things easier on Ottawa.
For the Maple Leafs, this acquisition appears to put the Jack Campbell era in Toronto to a close, the team needing a goaltender under tight cap circumstances, absorbing a cap hit just under $4.69MM now. Campbell had been rumored to be asking for at least a $5MM AAV on his next contract, if not more, over four or five years. With the price seemingly too rich for the Maple Leafs, they opted to go for Murray, who has just two years left on his contract. For now, Murray projects to be the number one goaltender for the Maple Leafs, with Erik Kallgren and Joseph Woll behind him. Given Murray’s injury issues and recent struggles in net, Torotno will either have to rely on Kallgren and Woll as support, or may have to find themselves another goaltender either through trade or free agency.
Murray’s career has come a long way since his impeccable run to back-to-back Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins as a rookie. After the Cups, Murray continued to impress in Pittsburgh, compiling a .913 save-percentage and 2.80 goals-against average in 99 games over the proceeding two seasons. But, the goaltender hit a wall in 2019-20, posting a subpar .899 save-percentage and 2.87 goals-against average before being traded to the Senators that offseason. Things, ultimately, got worse in Ottawa, Murray struggling to an .893 save-percentage and 3.38 goals-against average in 2020-21. Ottawa and Murray hoped for a fresh start in 2021-22, but injuries and poor play plagued him. The Senators would place Murray on waivers on November 27th, clearing the next day, and would not call him back up until December 28th. Murray would eventually head back to IR for the final time on March 6th, not playing another game for Ottawa. All told, the goaltender played just 20 games this season, though his numbers did improve slightly, with a .906 save-percentage and 3.05 goals-against average.
For the deal to work for Toronto, they will need Murray to rebound back to the player he was his first few seasons with the Penguins. Then, Murray was a budding star who not only won two Stanley Cups as a rookie, but did so usurping future Hall-of-Famer Marc-Andre Fleury in net. The impressive performance was so great, in fact, that when deciding which goaltender to protect ahead of the Vegas Golden Knights’ 2017 expansion draft, Pittsburgh opted to protect Murray, exposing, and losing, one of the best players in the franchise’s history. Gambling on Murray over Campbell, who represented the Maple Leafs at this year’s All Star Game, could pay dividends for Toronto, who likely saves significantly on contract term by going this route, but in order to do so, Murray will need to return to at least close to the player he was previously.
Break out the shocked-face emojis! And, with 25% retention?! Yowza! Maybe the Avs still have time to get to the NYR store and return the Georgie Dog for a full refund and get Kuemper back. Don’t forget that receipt, Joe!
Wow only 25% retained Dubas what the heck
Ottawa probably was unwillingly to go any higher. That’s partly why Toronto got the 2 draft picks added to the deal.
If it was 50% retained it still would be a iffy trade. Besides a 3rd maybe has a million dollar price tag if that
Welp good bye Campbell
LMAO Leafs gonna take that 1st round exit again.
That…. That’s it? Maybe Dorion is actually the most elite GM in the league and Melnyk was the problem this entire time!
Cant imagine staking your entire job to Matt Murray is going to lead to the most pleasant season for Dubas as GM.
Perhaps
Toronto better hope Murray doesn’t continue to bomb in the crease. With a NMC Murray can basically ensure he stays in Toronto for 2 more seasons.
About $4.6mil Toronto is paying Murray now.
Murray only has a 10-team ntc
Now Doobee trades him to NJ for Vanicek LOL
Yea but good luck trading him if he continues to suck unless they retain half of his salary & throw in some sweeteners.
Plot twist! They acquired him just to put him on LTIR all year to accumulate cap space or however that works.
Last year he traded for a goalie who got injured. This year he traded for one already injured. Takes away the element of surprise.
Boo this man!
First, I will always appreciate Murray’s terrific play in winning us two Cups and always root for him to turn his career around.
BUT…
The idea of betting a Stanley Cup contenders window on a guy who in the AHL last year after clearing waivers is beyond insane, it’s wishful thinking and utter malfeasance all rolled into one.
Wow. Lunacy.
This is why you hire hockey people, not spreadsheet people.
You knew this was going to happen based upon rumors.If you were not bringing Campbell. Would have traded for someone like reimer. tried to sign samsonov/comrie . They are crazy if they do bring a better backup . For first time i wonder if mathews does think about heading to arizona. At least Armstrong has a plan. Dubas seems to not have one.
campbell /kuemper one to washington one to edmonton unless surprise team jumps in.
Here’s comes another 1st round exit for Leaf fans
Hahahaha hehehehehehe!!!! Stop tickling me hockey gods! ROFLMFAO!!!
This is the absolute worst trade possible. Just pay Jack. Simple, you got rid of the turd Mrazik so take that money and give it to Jack. Simple. Carry on. Matt Murray is a plug. Nothing less, nothing more. He came into the league amd played behind one of the best teams in a decade, hell I could of played goal behind that team. He has been absolute dogshit at every opportunity since. Unmitigated disaster that I for one will not be watching. Idiots
This has Mrazek 2.0 written all over it. No wait in wrong it’s worse because the cap hit is higher.
The clock is ticking for this core and this does nothing to help them progress.
If you are going to win a Cup you need a decent goalie. Seems like Dubas is more interested in making risky deals designed to show how smart he is.
Only issue with this comment is this trade in no way shows how smart dubas is. In fact it shows the opposite. Even if Murray plays well, we could have gotten more salary retention considering nobody else in the league was going after Murray. Receiving a 3rd and a 7th pick in no way helps us win a cup with the team we have now, meanwhile paying less salary allows us to add better players to the roster. We could have just waited til ottawa inevitably bought out Murray’s contract, or found a 3rd team to add in the deal that could retain more of the salary. We could have potentially signed him for less then 2.5 million.
The Mrazek deal was a decent trade with Chicago but that’s a trade to cancel a bad signing therefore it’s a trade that never needed to happen. This is all poor business decisions from someone who understands the analytical side of hockey and not the human side.
Well, this should finally get Dubas fired after another 1st round playoff exit next April. :D
follow up
leafs trade kerfoot and a 2nd for a 3rd round pick. Sign Gino to a 3 year $7M/per. deal
Why would they need to include a second with Kerfoot? He’s a very useful player on a decent contract.
This guys career has gone off the tracks in recent seasons…not gonna get any easier playing in that fishbowl. The first bad goal against or mediocre game and the heat starts to rise immediately.
This is a big gamble by the Maple Leafs. How much does Campbell think he’s getting that made the this gamble seem like a good idea? I must be unaware of the FA G market.
per nhl network, the number getting tossed is atleast 5 X 5 million
25 million? 5X5? What has Campbell done to warrant that investment? You’re basically betting that he’ll actually get better and max out his potential. We all saw what happened when the Cubs did that with Jason Heyward. I’d expect a similar result with Campbell.
Didn’t realize that the Caps cut Samsonov loose.
IF (big if) the Leafs can get Samsonov on the cheap to pair with Murray, it’s slightly less insane.
Two rolls of the dice with pedigree would be, at least, something.
Yes, instead of just having 1 bad goalie, employ 2. Brilliant!!1!
had this exact same thought yesterday. don’t expect it but if Samson was willing to take 1.5M on a show me contract, wouldn’t be a bad idea to backup Murray with someone young and who has more than a year of experience
that being said, I expect him to get something near and maybe slightly more than his QO. But many teams could use him as a 1.5-2.25 guy for one year who can play 30+ games.
Sens 3rd rounder is more like a late 2nd…so there’s that lol
It’s not 2020 anymore
One of my favorites hoping he makes a comeback season.
Dubas Is desperate and In over his head, I think he Is sidetracked by the Idea of Matthews leaving for Arizona when his deal Is up.
why would he do that though? Are they willing to pony up 12+ million per year? is he willing to play in front of 5000 people?
The guy wears glasses and looks cool on camera he’s already worth his gm seat in a tik tok franchise. Now you want him to make good trades? Wadayatalkinabout?
Can you say door Matt? The media and fanbase now have another guy to point the finger at for Toronto’s epic decades long failures. Just a matter of time.