After being acquired in the fall of 2020, Matt Murray’s tenure in Ottawa didn’t go as planned for either the club or player. Ottawa traded for Murray on October 7th, 2020, at the NHL draft for a 2020 2nd round pick and prospect John Gruden. Shortly thereafter, Murray signed a 4-year deal worth $25M.
In 47 games, Murray went 15-25-3 with an .899 save percentage. Through 2 seasons, he only started 28% of the Senators games as he dealt with a variety of injuries. Suffice to say the Senators weren’t thrilled at the prospect of paying a goalie $6.25M for the next two years to play under a third of the season.
So yesterday, following a few days of rumblings, Matt Murray was officially dealt to the Toronto Maple Leafs. The trade is as followed:
Toronto Receives:
- Matt Murray (25% of contract retained)
- 2023 3rd round pick
- 2024 7th round pick
Ottawa Receives:
- Future Considerations
Ottawa
The Senators were actively trying to trade Matt Murray and his contract this off season. They finally got that done. They will be retaining a little over $1.5M for the next two seasons. This frees up valuable cap space, which should be put to good use as free agency looms on the horizon. It will also help with the Josh Norris contract, as well as possible Tim Stutzle and Alex Debrincat extensions.
Toronto
This move proves to be a risk for Toronto. They’re acquiring a goalie that has struggled to remain healthy the past 3 years, but are clearly banking on his upside. Murray was on top of the world at one point, winning two Stanley cups and boasting a .920+ save percentage in 2016-17. If he returns to that form, Toronto is getting a solid starting goalie for a bargain of a contract, plus some draft capital to boot.
Of course, from an Ottawa perspective, it still might be a little tough seeing him go. Murray was always a player you would root for, but had more than his fair share of bad luck since that 2017 Stanley cup win.
The Matt Murray saga will always be a strange one in the Nation’s Capital. Based on the 4-year contract, it appeared as though Murray was supposed to be the unquestioned starter while Mads Sogaard, Leevi Merilainen, and Filip Gustavsson would battle it out for the title of “goalie of the future”.
He certainly had some streaky performances, but never was healthy enough to put together a large enough sample size to make any definitive judgments. His last 5 games of the 2021 season saw him post a .954 save percentage. However, he suffered a lower body injury which caused him to miss the final 8 contests.
This past season, Matt Murray was great until two stinkers against the Lightning and Coyotes in March followed by another injury. This time, it was his neck that ailed him. He had a .920 save percentage up until his last two games, which saw him give up 13 goals on 53 shots faced. Once the injury bug bit him against the Arizona Coyotes on March 5th, he then missed the next 24 games. Just when he seemed to finally be hitting his stride his redemption tour was cut short once more.
It seems as though the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators are going to have completely different off seasons. With this move, Toronto burns some of their precious remaining cap space. Meanwhile, Pierre Dorion continues to wrack up an impressive cell phone bill in July as he completed another deal, this time shipping Filip Gustavsson to Minnesota for veteran netminder Cam Talbot.
With the 24 year old Swede now with the Wild, and Murray reuniting with fellow Soo Greyhound alum Kyle Dubas in Toronto, the Senators have now completely overhauled their goaltending situation heading into 2022-23. And perhaps a fresh start will wind up being beneficial for all parties involved.
-Damian Smith
Twitter: @Damian__Smith
Photo: Michael Miller. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.