As expected, the Toronto Maple Leafs have activated Matt Murray from long-term injured reserve ahead of their matchup tonight against the Pittsburgh Penguins. In a pair of corresponding moves, Wayne Simmonds and Keith Petruzzelli have been returned to the minor leagues, according to CapFriendly.
Murray, 28, has played in just one game this season, allowing four goals on 23 shots. In his absence, the team had been running a duo of Ilya Samsonov and Erik Kalllgren until the former suffered an injury of his own, leaving the latter to handle the entire load. Petruzzelli, who earned an NHL contract just so the team would have two eligible goaltenders, did not see any action during his recall.
The Maple Leafs took a big gamble acquiring Murray this year, after injuries have ravaged his performance the last few years. When he takes the ice tonight he will be appearing in just his second NHL game since March 5, when he last played for the Ottawa Senators (and allowed eight goals on 31 shots).
It should, at least, be a familiar spot for him to try and get back on track. Murray spent the first five seasons of his career in Pittsburgh, posting a .914 save percentage over 199 regular season games and leading the Penguins to back-to-back Stanley Cup championships. It’s easy to forget just how well he played during those playoff runs, including posting three shutouts and a .937 save percentage in 11 games after returning from injury in 2017.
If the Maple Leafs could get that Murray back they might be one of the most dangerous teams in the league, but he hasn’t existed in recent years. Since the start of the 2019-20 season, Murray has a .898 save percentage in 86 games.
Said this 1000 times,need to have a separate cap for goaltenders in the system.
2D or 2F get hurt,you have a pool of players to select from. The organizational goaltending depth shifts dramatically when 2 or more go down.
Here it is-you employ 6-8 goaltenders in your system. NHL/AHL/ECHL level. The cap? The average cap for goaltenders of all NHL clubs-if you are above the average on Sept 15 sets the cap hit for the season. That way PTO players and goalies can figure in on you final cap.
Below average you cannot use that for your “player cap”.
Also cannot stash goaltenders on LTIR unless it’s the entire season.
You can also add goaltenders at the deadline without cap issues.
You can already have as many goaltenders signed as you’d like.
Not many teams only have 3-4 goaltenders signed to NHL contracts.
This is just pure mismanagement, each team can have 50 NHL contracts, it’s not the leagues fault that the Leafs or any other team is at the 50 max with only 3 or 4 goaltenders signed!
Or maybe the Leafs shouldn’t spend almost half of their cap space on 4 forwards.