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Matt Murray Undergoes Successful Surgery

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Sportsnet is reporting that Toronto Maple Leafs netminder Matt Murray has undergone successful bilateral hip surgery and is expected to miss between six and eight months. This likely means he will miss the entire 2023-24 NHL season. Murray was acquired from the Ottawa Senators in July 2022 along with a third-round pick in exchange for a seventh-round pick and future considerations. It was essentially a salary cap dump at the time by the Ottawa Senators, who retained over $1.5MM of Murray’s $6.25MM cap hit.

The former two-time Stanley Cup champion has fallen on hard times in recent years as his health has kept him out of the lineup for extended periods of time in each of the past five seasons. Murray hasn’t played more than 30 games in a season since the 2019-20 season when he was a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins. When he has been available to play, he hasn’t been able to match the levels of play that made him a Stanley Cup champion in 2016 and 2017. Murray hasn’t posted a goals-against average below 3.00 since 2019-20 and has seen his save percentage hover around .900 since 2018-19.

Murray has has struggles with his health for a long time now and one must wonder if he will be able to overcome his latest setback and get back into an NHL lineup. The Thunder Bay, Ontario native has never been able to capture the magic that he put on display early in his career and has seen his stock tumble to the point of being a cap dump last summer.

Murray appeared to be on the cusp of superstardom in 2017 when the Penguins elected to keep him over franchise icon Marc-Andre Fleury who was taken by the Vegas Golden Knights in the expansion draft. The Penguins had signed Murray to a three-year extension at the time and thought they had an elite netminder that could lead them to more Stanley Cups. Unfortunately, Murray’s play flatlined and he was unseated as the starter by Tristan Jarry. He was then dealt to the Senators in 2020 and signed to an extension in a move that proved disastrous for Ottawa.

Marc-Andre Fleury Will Decide Playing Future After Season

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Likely future Hall-of-Fame netminder Marc-Andre Fleury won’t examine retiring until the 2023-24 season draws to a close, as he told The Athletic’s Joe Smith yesterday during the first day of Wild training camp.

Fleury, 38, is entering the second season of a two-year, $7MM contract extension signed by Wild GM Bill Guerin in July 2022. He’s again expected to shoulder a significant workload as a 1B tandem netminder behind the younger Filip Gustavsson, and he begins 2023-24 on the precipice of multiple milestones, such as the 1,000 games played mark and second-place on the NHL’s all-time wins list behind Patrick Roy. He currently trails Roy by just six and could likely surpass him by the new year.

“I thought about it this summer and stuff, but I just told myself I would give myself this season, see how it goes, see how I feel physically, mentally, if I still can stop the puck and just make a decision at the end,” Fleury told Smith. “There will be ups and downs this season. I’ll try to get through it and make a decision at the end.”

A few years ago, few thought Fleury would be in this position. After becoming an integral part of the Vegas Golden Knights as their first starting netminder in franchise history and winning the Vezina Trophy in 2021, the team ran into salary cap constraints that forced them to trade the final season of a three-year, $7MM AAV contract to the Chicago Blackhawks, whom Fleury did not have on his ten-team no-trade list. At that time, Fleury reportedly considered retiring instead of reporting to the rebuilding Blackhawks after the trade.

He’s still going strong two years later, though, and he’ll play a key support role to a Wild team that continues to have aspirations for a deep playoff run. He remains an above-average netminder, recording a decent .908 save percentage while actually starting the lion’s share of Minnesota’s games last season (he started 45 out of 82) despite Gustavsson’s brilliance. A fourth Stanley Cup championship, should the Wild win, would tie Fleury for third in NHL history among goalies. Montreal Canadiens legends Ken Dryden and Jacques Plante each won six, while Toronto Maple Leafs pre-expansion star Turk Broda won five.

The Wild acquired Fleury near the 2022 trade deadline from the Blackhawks, sending their 2022 second-round pick to them in return. Chicago used the pick to select playmaking center Ryan Greene, who’s about to begin his sophomore campaign at Boston University.

If Fleury opts to continue his playing career after 2023-24, though, it may not be in the State of Hockey. After an additional year of seasoning in the AHL, 2021 first-round pick Jesper Wallstedt will likely be ready for a full-time backup role behind Gustavsson.

Maple Leafs To Place Matt Murray On LTIR

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The Toronto Maple Leafs have announced that they will be placing goaltender Matt Murray on the LTIR prior to the start of the 2023-24 season. No details on Murray’s injury were provided in the release, which will surely lead to a lot of speculation in the coming days. With Murray joining Jake Muzzin on LTIR, the Maple Leafs will remain $2.1MM over the salary cap, meaning that they will need to do some cap gymnastics in the coming weeks to try and get under the $83.5MM salary cap by October.

Murray’s first season in Toronto was a difficult one for the former two-time Stanley Cup champion as he battled inconsistency and injuries once again. The Thunder Bay, Ontario native hasn’t been able to steady his game or remain in the net since his time with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Murray was dealt by the Penguins to the Ottawa Senators in October 2020 and quickly signed a four-year extension worth $24MM. The deal was heavily criticized at the time as being too rich and too long for a goaltender that had struggled to stay healthy and consistent.

The Senators were then forced into a cap dump last summer as they traded Murray to the Maple Leafs along with two draft picks for future considerations. Trading for Murray was a good idea in theory from former general manager Kyle Dubas, however, in reality, the deal never worked out for Toronto as Murray was unable to bounce back or stay healthy. Murray dressed in just 26 games going 14-8-2 with a 3.01 goals-against average and a .903 save percentage.

The move will effectively end any talks of a buyout, which is ultimately the best outcome for the player and team. Matt Murray will retain his entire $8MM salary for the upcoming season and the Leafs will be able to use the entire $4.7MM of the cap space that would have been allocated to Murray.

It is quite the fall from grace for a netminder who looked like a budding superstar just six years ago. Murray won back-to-back Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins as a rookie and looked like he was the future of the Penguins when the team moved on from franchise icon Marc-Andre Fleury. However, Murray’s career began to derail a short time later due to multiple injuries and inconsistent play and since then he has been unable to right the ship.

Evening Notes: Gustavsson, Crammarossa, Iowa

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Joe Smith of The Athletic writes that it appears the Minnesota Wild and goaltender Filip Gustavsson will decide their contract dispute in arbitration. Smith writes that the deal will get done but will most likely be done through an arbitrator as the sides appear unlikely to reach an agreement without the intervention. The Wild and Gustavsson are set to go to arbitration on August 4th, and with Ilya Samsonov’s ruling now official and Jeremy Swayman’s case set to be heard later this week, both sides should have a clearer picture of what would be a fair contract from the club and the 25-year-old goaltender.

Gustavsson excelled in his first year in Minnesota after coming over in an off-season trade from the Ottawa Senators. It was expected that the native of Skelleftea, Sweden would backup Marc-Andre Fleury, however by the time the playoffs rolled around Gustavsson owned the Minnesota net having gone 22-9-7 with a .931 save percentage and a 2.10 goals-against average.

The Wild are dealing with a very precarious cap situation as they deal with the blowback from the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter buyouts that are eating up about $15MM of Minnesota’s cap space. However, they do still have around $5MM in cap space remaining to re-sign the young netminder.

In other evening notes:

  • Joseph Cramarossa has officially signed a contract with the Löwen Frankfurt of the DEL league. Cramarossa played in the NHL as recently as the past season as he played four games for the Minnesota Wild, scoring just a single goal. He also posted four goals and five assists in 18 games with the Iowa Wild of the AHL. Back in January of this year, Cramarossa had his contract terminated by the Wild and at that time he went overseas to play for Adlern Mannheim of the DEK. While in Germany Cramarossa posted two goals and six assists in 15 games.
  • Lastly, the Iowa Heartlanders of the ECHL have announced that they’ve come to terms with defensemen Robbie Stucker and Ben Brinkman on contracts for the 2023-24 season. The club also announced that forward Jake Durflinger has agreed to a deal as well. Brinkman and Stucker were formerly teammates at the University of Minnesota from 2018-21 while Durflinger will enter his second season with the Heartlanders having played 50 games last season posting 10 goals and 10 assists. The 25-year-old finished the season strong scoring seven of his ten goals between March 18th and April 7th.

Central Notes: Fleury, Girard, Namestnikov

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After serving as the backup for most of the playoffs, Wild goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury indicated to reporters including Michael Russo of The Athletic (Twitter link) after Friday’s series-ending loss to Dallas that he intends to fulfill the final year of his contract and not retire this summer.  Russo notes (subscription link) that the veteran had indicated that he’d be open to hanging up his skates if he showed this season that he couldn’t play up to his standards.  While Fleury didn’t have his best campaign, he still posted an above-average .908 SV% along with a 2.85 GAA in 46 games, clearly showing he can still compete at the top level.  He’ll enter next season seven wins away from tying Patrick Roy for the second-most regular season victories in NHL history.

More from the Central:

  • While Colorado is still alive in their first-round series, some are already looking ahead to what their offseason might look like. Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli is one of those, suggesting that defenseman Samuel Girard could be the odd one out on the back end for the Avalanche with the team needing to fill as many as nine roster spots with not a ton of cap space to work with.  The 24-year-old should be highly sought after if that happens as he’ll have four years left on his deal after this one at a $5MM AAV which is good value for someone consistently logging more than 21 minutes a night on the back end while chipping in offensively; he had a career-high 37 points this season.
  • Jets forward Vladislav Namestnikov has certainly bounced around lately, playing for seven different teams since 2019. With that in mind, Sportsnet’s Ken Wiebe wonders if Winnipeg offering the 30-year-old a multi-year extension would be enough to get the pending UFA to become a longer-term piece for the team instead of just being another rental.  Namestnikov had 10 points in 20 games during the regular season after being acquired at the trade deadline while chipping in with a pair of assists in their five-game loss to Vegas.

Wild Notes: Gustavsson, Sundqvist, Zuccarello

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Michael Russo of The Athletic is reporting that Filip Gustavsson was the first goalie off at Minnesota Wild practice today indicating that he will likely get the start in game six tonight against the Dallas Stars. Gustavsson has been between the pipes for four of the Wild’s five playoff games and has given up just nine goals on 125 shots. Although those numbers are sparking, Gustavsson has struggled in each of his last two starts giving up three goals in each game on just 24 shots. This drop in his play coupled with the brilliant play of Dallas netminder Jake Oettinger has Minnesota on the ropes as they will face elimination in game six tonight.

There was some speculation that Minnesota could turn to veteran goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury to start game six, but Fleury has struggled in his last four starts dating back to early April. The former Vezina winner has only started one game in the series, a game two loss in which he gave up seven goals on 31 shots. Gustavsson had superior numbers to Fleury in the regular season as well and may even garner some Vezina consideration come awards season.

In other Minnesota notes:

  • Michael Russo tweeted that Oskar Sundqvist could possibly play tonight for the Wild. Sundqvist hasn’t dressed since game two of the Dallas series and has a goal in just a single game in these playoffs. The two-time Stanley Cup winner was healthy scratched for game three and hasn’t seen game action since. The 29-year-old Swede came over from the Detroit Red Wings in a trade deadline move for a fourth-round pick and looked to be a fit putting up seven points in 15 games. However, in the playoffs the Wild have opted for more toughness and have kept Ryan Reaves in the lineup over Sundqvist.
  • Russo also tweeted that Wild forward Mats Zuccarello will likely be out of the lineup, or best-case scenario he will be a game time decision. The Norway native didn’t skate yesterday with the team and is dealing with an undisclosed ailment. The Wild have been tight lipped about the situation and at this point there are more questions than answers. Zuccarello has been fantastic for the Wild this season with 67 points in 78 games during the regular season and has followed that up with two goals and three assists through five playoff games. Should he be unable to dress, the Wild will be hard pressed to replicate his production in the most important game of their season.

Stars/Wild Notes: Wallstedt, Eriksson Ek, Pavelski

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With the Iowa Wild’s quick elimination from the AHL’s Calder Cup Playoffs, The Athletic’s Michael Russo reports the Minnesota Wild are expected to call up their complement of Black Aces today to be around the team while their playoff run continues. While most won’t be called up after Iowa’s exit meetings, Russo said that top goalie prospect Jesper Wallstedt has already been recalled and will serve as the third goalie behind the team’s tandem of Filip Gustavsson and Marc-Andre Fleury.

Wallstedt, 20, didn’t have the playoff performance he wanted in Iowa, recording a .897 save percentage in two overtime losses as Iowa lost their best-of-three series against the Rockford IceHogs. It doesn’t diminish what was a promising stretch run to the season for him, wrapping up his first pro season in North America with a .908 save percentage and a shutout in 38 games for Iowa. Selected 20th overall in the 2021 NHL Draft, Wallstedt remains one of the best goalie prospects in the league and should gain valuable experience from being around the Minnesota team for the rest of their postseason.

  • After attempting to return from injury in Game 3 and skating just one shift, things aren’t looking up for the health of Wild center Joel Eriksson Ek. Head coach Dean Evason told reporters today Eriksson Ek hasn’t skated since his latest injury, as he’s still in the process of evaluation and “not close” to returning to the lineup. Eyes now turn to Sam Steel and Frédérick Gaudreau, who have both performed well so far in the series, to shoulder Eriksson Ek’s absence.
  • On the flip side, Dallas Stars winger Joe Pavelski continues to progress in his recovery after a hit in Game 1 that caused him to enter concussion protocol. Pavelski skated with the team today for the first time since the injury, and head coach Peter DeBoer told reporters Pavelski’s progressed in his recovery each day. It remains unclear whether Pavelski will return this series.

Morning Notes: NHLPA Poll, Quick, Canadiens

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The NHLPA Player Poll has become a yearly fixture, giving fans an insight into what players have to say in popular public debates. This year’s edition dropped this morning with mostly expected results.

Tampa Bay Lightning netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy was voted by a wide margin as the goalie players would want in net with one game on the line for the second straight season, while the Colorado Avalanche’s Cale Makar was voted best defenseman in the league by a landslide. Connor McDavid won “most impactful forward in a must-win game,” no doubt buoyed by last year’s electric playoff performance. Other winners were Patrick Kane for best stick-handler, Leon Draisaitl for best passer, Sidney Crosby for most complete player, Brad Marchand for least enjoy playing against (but want on your team), Joe Pavelski for most effective net-front player, and Aleksander Barkov for most underrated. Marie-Philip Poulin was also voted as the women’s hockey player that NHL players would most like to play alongside, past or present, and the Bell Centre was voted as having the best ice in the NHL for the fifth time.

In off-ice results, Las Vegas was voted the best road city to have an off day, Marc-Andre Fleury was voted best locker room presence, and Auston Matthews was voted as having the best shoe game.

More notes from around the NHL this morning:

  • Now a Vegas Golden Knight, Stanley Cup-winning netminder Jonathan Quick continues to move up the all-time ranks. With last night’s road win against the Vancouver Canucks, Quick moved into sole possession of second place on the all-time wins list for American-born goaltenders, trailing only Ryan Miller. Quick now sits just 16 wins back of tying the all-time record with 375 wins under his belt.
  • In some rare positive injury news for the Montreal Canadiens this season, Jake Evans has returned to practice in a full-contact jersey, while Jesse Ylonen has returned to practice after missing the team’s last game with an illness, per TVA’s Renaud Lavoie. Ylonen hasn’t looked out of place in his first extended NHL look this season, recording five goals and 12 points in 29 games. Evans is nearing a return after missing over two months with a lower-body injury.

Marc-Andre Fleury Away From Minnesota Wild For Personal Reasons

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The Minnesota Wild are certainly thankful Filip Gustavsson is feeling healthy enough to play once again, as they’ll be down a separate netminder. According to Michael Russo of The Athletic, Marc-Andre Fleury is expected to be away from the team at least for one game due to personal reasons. Zane McIntyre, who was recalled due to Gustavsson’s illness, is still with the team to backup Gustavsson.

It’s unclear what the issue is for Fleury, however as Russo details, it appears to stem back as far as New Year’s Eve. Of course, Fleury and his family are entitled to their privacy in what are likely difficult times. Russo adds that as of right now, the expectation is Fleury would leave the Wild this morning and return home to Montreal before rejoining the team on Tuesday in New York City. After playing at home tonight, the Wild head to New York to play the Rangers on Tuesday and the Islanders Thursday, heading home for one game Saturday against the Arizona Coyotes, then heading back out east for four games.

Fleury, 38, has already established himself as a likely Hall-of-Famer, but hasn’t been his usual self this season, recording a 2.94 goals against and .901 save-percentage. Fortunately for the Wild, they’ve received superb goaltending from Gustavsson, the usual backup, who has turned in a 2.24 goals-against and .924 save-percentage in 15 games.

Minnesota Wild Activate Marc-Andre Fleury

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The Minnesota Wild have their starting goaltender back. Marc-Andre Fleury has been activated from injured reserve, meaning Zane McIntyre is on his way back to the minor leagues.

Fleury, 37, ended up missing three games with an upper-body injury but the Wild actually did rather well in his absence. After giving up five goals and losing the first game without him, Filip Gustavsson came back with two strong performances, allowing just two goals on 50 shots to secure a pair of victories.

McIntyre didn’t appear in a game, and Fleury is now ready to jump right back in the net for the second half of the team’s current seven-game homestand.

The question some Wild fans will have is whether Gustavsson has earned enough to split the starts with Fleury for the rest of the season. The young goaltender has been good when called upon, posting a .914 save percentage through eight appearances. Fleury, meanwhile, has a .906, though that number is heavily influenced by some early-season struggles.

In his last five games before going down to injury, Fleury had posted a .943, allowing just eight goals on 141 shots.

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