Maple Leafs Commentary: Murray's Injury Blessing in Disguise

You never want to see a player go down with a long-term injury as Matt Murray did in Saturday’s practice prior to the Maple Leafs’ home game with the Ottawa Senators. The Maple Leafs subsequently placed Murray on Long Term Injury Reserve.

Samsonov Should Be Able to Carry the Load Until Murray Returns

If we’ve counted right, Murray will be out until November sixth, which happens to be the second of their next back-to-back games. The Maple Leafs are in Carolina to take on the Hurricane that night after playing the Boston Bruins in Toronto the night before. The timing could not have been better if Murray’s ready to go for that game.

Meanwhile, until those back-to-back games on November 5 and 6, the Maple Leafs play nine games in 21 days. As long as he plays well enough and stays healthy (knock on wood), Samsonov should be quite capable of carrying the load. If Samsonov should struggle, Kallgren has shown he has the capability to give the Maple Leafs adequate goaltending.

Considering the Maple Leafs’ Bigger Picture

As for the bigger picture, removing Murray’s $4,687,500 salary from the Maple Leafs’ cap hit gives the team flexibility it didn’t have previously. The team was four dollars under the $82.5 million NHL salary cap prior to them placing Murray on LTIR with a roster of the bare minimum of 20 players. The team had absolutely no flexibility to move anyone up or down in the organization without having to place someone on waivers and risk losing them.

Matt Murray Ottawa Senators — Matt Murray was often injured when he played for the Ottawa Senators
(Photo by Richard A. Whittaker/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Now the Maple Leafs have enough room to carry the league’s maximum of 23 players if they wish. More importantly, they have options to move players in and out of the lineup.

The Maple Leafs Coming Roster Moves

The first move the Maple Leafs did yesterday was to recall Erik Kallgren to serve as backup. Luckily for the team, Kallgren was declared healthy and cleared to play after getting run over the previous night and had to leave the game when the Marlies were in Rochester to take on the Americans. After placing Murray on LTIR and recalling Kallgren the team now has $3,937,500 in additional cap space.

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We expect the next move will be to call up Nick Robertson. With the training camp Robertson had, he fully deserved to be on this team but was the unfortunate victim of the waiver exemption rule. It would not surprise us to see Robertson inserted into the lineup on Monday when the Maple Leafs take on the Arizona Coyotes in the third game of their present four-game home stand.

Robertson is not that far removed from the team where head coach Sheldon Keefe would feel he would need practice reps before inserting him into the lineup. If Keefe did want to give Robertson some practice time, the team has two days after the Coyotes game before they take on the Dallas Stars. Either way, we’re confident we’ll see Robertson in the lineup at some point this week.

Nick Robertson Toronto Maple Leafs — Nick Robertson, Toronto Maple Leafs (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)

Denis Malgin has played well in the first three games of the season; but, after scoring a goal in his first game, he has not figured into the scoring since. Zach Aston-Reese has put up terrible underlying statistics in the three games he has played. We could see Robertson replacing Malgin on the second line alongside John Tavares and William Nylander, and Malgin dropping down to the bottom six to replace Aston-Reese.

Timothy Liljegren’s Situation

Also of importance is the Timothy Liljegren situation and what effect his return to the lineup would have on the team’s roster. With a completely healthy team, the Maple Leafs were going to be over the salary cap limit by about $1.4 million upon Liljegren’s return.

With the added cap space from Murray’s injury, the team can kick that can down the road a bit, and welcome Liljegren back without having to make a reciprocal roster move.

The Maple Leafs’ Goalie Cupboard Is Bare

The one thing Murray’s absence does is leave the cupboard quite bare. With the exception of 2022 fourth-round pick Dennis Hildeby who’s 21 and has a total of seven games played in anything above the junior level to his name, the Maple Leafs have only two goalies signed to NHL contracts. Even with Liljegren’s $1.4 million back on the books, the Maple Leafs would still have about $2.5 million in cap space to bring in another goalie.

Keith Petruzzelli, Quinnipiac University — Keith Petruzzelli when he was with Quinnipiac University (Photo credit: Rob Rasmussen)

If one of these goalies were to get hurt, the team would have to either sign and promote either Keith Petruzzelli or Dylan Ferguson from the Marlies or acquire a goalie from outside their system.

Murray’s Injury Isn’t Good, But It Isn’t All Bad Either

As we stated off the top, while you never want to see players injured, Murray’s injury could be a bit of a blessing in disguise for the Maple Leafs and their salary cap situation.

In the meantime, until Murray returns, Maple Leafs’ fans will wait to see what moves the team will make on its roster.

[Note: I want to thank long-time Maple Leafs’ fan Stan Smith for collaborating with me on this post. Stan’s Facebook profile can be found here.]

Maple Leafs Commentary: Murray’s Injury Blessing in Disguise