Uh Oh. Matt Murray Leaves Practice LTIR'd (injury discussion)

[cyris]

The small sample sizes are a valid point on husso and comrie, however neither goalie we’re given any real games played in their career until last year and both goalies put up very good numbers. For me, I’d prefer the 2 young goalies not given much opportunity until last year who put up good numbers over a goalie in murray who has been replacement level and injury prone the last 3 years and samsonov who Washington who thought so highly of let him walk for nothing. You tell me which duo I’d bet my job on, both husso/comrie and Murray/samsnov have there own risks but the husso/comrie is a better bet.

husso/samsonov would have been ok to, murray was the rotten tomatoe dubas went for….

I definitely would have preferred Husso Samsonov.
Samsonov has struggled a bit in the NHL thus far but he isn’t too far removed from being one of the top goalie prospects in the game. His age compared to most of the other guys available made him one of the guys I wanted the most.

I do think Husso was probably on Dubas’s radar along with Fleury for FA targets but neither one need up making it there. Credit to Steve Y for getting there before Husso had the chance to make it to market.

 

[cyris]

Friedman said Murray wasn’t our first or second choice this off-season, when those fell through Dubas changed gears and went after a Murray.

Yeah that is how it looked. I think Husso and Fleury were guys he was looking at but neither made it to free agency. And really all the guys who were available carried some level of risk

 

[centipede2233]

I definitely would have preferred Husso Samsonov.
Samsonov has struggled a bit in the NHL thus far but he isn’t too far removed from being one of the top goalie prospects in the game. His age compared to most of the other guys available made him one of the guys I wanted the most.

I do think Husso was probably on Dubas’s radar along with Fleury for FA targets but neither one need up making it there. Credit to Steve Y for getting there before Husso had the chance to make it to market.

That’s what good GM’s do like yzerman, you forecast and bear people to the punch. Dubas doesn’t have that foresight. It doesn’t take a damn genius to know Husso was the most coveted goalie outside of kuemper and to trade a pick a few days ahead of FA to hammer out a deal. yzerman can make that move, dubas can’t.

 

[SeaOfBlue]

5yrs ago he knew that goaltending was an issue and to date has failed to find a suitable tandem.

And where are these reasonable alternatives?

It seems that unless you have Vasilevsky, it is really just getting lucky. Binnington for STL came out of nowhere. Holtby returning to Vezina form after being far from it during the regular season. Kuemper wasn't even all that good for Colorado but he was enough for them to win. And then you have the guy who the Leafs brought in who also came out of nowhere winning for PIT.

Even Crawford was not a top goalie before he won at 28. Vasilevsky and Quick were really the only ones in the past decade with a prior history of play and were able to win. Both were drafted and developed.

We've had guys who have mostly done fine in the regular season (especially pre-injury Andersen), but then fail miserably once the Leafs finally get in a spot to win. Since Dubas has taken over, I haven't seen any goalies made available who look like they can change that. Markstrom flopped in the playoffs. Lehner did the same. The vast majority of the rest were drafted, and were drafted before Dubas was in charge of this team.

I am not the biggest fan of the goalies that Dubas has drafted, but there have also not been many goalies in general who look like they would have been great selections (although it is still early for many of them) and it does nothing to really help the Leafs right now. And even in the Hunter years, there have only been 4 guys who, at least so far, turned into anything that could somewhat resemble a starter (either now or in the future) and the Leafs have one of them (Samsonov).

At this point, fixing goaltending is the same as trying to fix a bullpen in baseball. You can throw money at it, but there is no guarantee it turns into success because it is volatile for the most part. You can have success in the regular season and then suck in the playoffs or vice versa. There are obviously some guys who are better or more likely to turn out than others, but those guys are usually not available and then when you weed out those options, you are not left with much better than what the Leafs went with. And unlike many other teams, the Leafs didn't have to spend a lot on goaltending to get their tandem so they have money to spend on areas where investment is more likely to yield returns.

 

[cyris]

That’s what good GM’s do like yzerman, you forecast and bear people to the punch. Dubas doesn’t have that foresight. It doesn’t take a damn genius to know Husso was the most coveted goalie outside of kuemper and to trade a pick a few days ahead of FA to hammer out a deal. yzerman can make that move, dubas can’t.

I don’t really know that we had the draft capital to trade a pick for the negotiating rights of a goalie about to be a UFA with no previous guarantee that he would sign.

That said it’s Dubas’s fault we were that low on draft picks.

 

[centipede2233]

I don’t really know that we had the draft capital to trade a pick for the negotiating rights of a goalie about to be a UFA with no previous guarantee that he would sign.

That said it’s Dubas’s fault we were that low on draft picks.

I was gonna respond with your last sentence, but you beat me to it lol.

dubas would rather send a 1st for an injured rental foligno….horrible asset management.

 

[Fogelhund]

@LEAFANFORLIFE23 Now is the time for your Leafs need a goaltender thread.

 

[SeaOfBlue]

I definitely would have preferred Husso Samsonov.
Samsonov has struggled a bit in the NHL thus far but he isn’t too far removed from being one of the top goalie prospects in the game. His age compared to most of the other guys available made him one of the guys I wanted the most.

I do think Husso was probably on Dubas’s radar along with Fleury for FA targets but neither one need up making it there. Credit to Steve Y for getting there before Husso had the chance to make it to market.

I mean Husso was literally the worst post-season goalie last year and had a one year track record of success. Going after Husso feels like you are going after another Campbell, but I guess it all comes down to preference.

Gibson: Once highly touted with a ton of regular season success, but has been subpar for years (even considering he was playing for a bad team), massive asking price, and very inflated contract with no real track record of playoff success.
Murray: Also once highly touted with a ton of regular season success, but has a much better contract (which also came with some assets attached), has won two Cups, and there is some familiarity with him from the coaching staff/management. Main downside are the injuries which have held him back the past few years.
Husso: Young-ish (although only one year younger than Murray) with a promising first season in the NHL, but poor in the playoffs and a complete mystery box considering he only has one season in the NHL.
Kuemper: Really starting to get old, didn't really do all that well in the playoffs for Colorado even though he won, and then he had that eye injury. Also needed an expensive contract.
Campbell: Had one really amazing month, but was historically awful for the entire second half of the season and was 0-5 in series clinching games with a subpar save percentage in those games. Also needed an expensive contract.

For me, the ideal would have been paying for Varlamov and pairing him with Samsonov, but it doesn't seem like Lou wanted to move him. Pair of Russians, Varlamov only has one year left on his deal so if Samsonov looks good enough to extend then the money opens up to re-sign him, and Varlamov was excellent in the playoffs for the Islanders.

After that though, I think Murray would have been my choice assuming we did the due-diligence with his injuries. Winning pedigree with some promising bounce-back potential once he gets away from Ottawa, and he was absolutely stellar in preseason without any incident. Although at this point, I think I have lost all faith in our medical staff being able to keep any goalie healthy for a prolong period of time regardless of their injury history.

 

[cyris]

I was gonna respond with your last sentence, but you beat me to it lol.

dubas would rather send a 1st for an injured rental foligno….horrible asset management.

I could have lived with just the first for a failed rental. But so many picks went out the door for guys that had no impact. Nash, Rittich, Noesen. Just a brutal deadline in general.

 

[cyris]

I mean Husso was literally the worst post-season goalie last year and had a one year track record of success. Going after Husso feels like you are going after another Campbell, but I guess it all comes down to preference.

Gibson: Once highly touted with a ton of regular season success, but has been subpar for years (even considering he was playing for a bad team), massive asking price, and very inflated contract with no real track record of playoff success.
Murray: Also once highly touted with a ton of regular season success, but has a much better contract (which also came with some assets attached), has won two Cups, and there is some familiarity with him from the coaching staff/management. Main downside are the injuries which have held him back the past few years.
Husso: Young-ish (although only one year younger than Murray) with a promising first season in the NHL, but poor in the playoffs and a complete mystery box considering he only has one season in the NHL.
Kuemper: Really starting to get old, didn't really do all that well in the playoffs for Colorado even though he won, and then he had that eye injury. Also needed an expensive contract.
Campbell: Had one really amazing month, but was historically awful for the entire second half of the season and was 0-5 in series clinching games with a subpar save percentage in those games. Also needed an expensive contract.

For me, the ideal would have been paying for Varlamov and pairing him with Samsonov, but it doesn't seem like Lou wanted to move him. Pair of Russians, Varlamov only has one year left on his deal so if Samsonov looks good enough to extend then the money opens up to re-sign him, and Varlamov was excellent in the playoffs for the Islanders.

After that though, I think Murray would have been my choice assuming we did the due-diligence with his injuries. Winning pedigree with some promising bounce-back potential once he gets away from Ottawa, and he was absolutely stellar in preseason without any incident. Although at this point, I think I have lost all faith in our medical staff being able to keep any goalie healthy for a prolong period of time regardless of their injury history.

Husso didn’t have a good playoffs at all I mostly would have been interested in him due to his age.
Overall every available goalie came with huge risks. I’m glad we avoided Campbell and Kemper due to their cost and AAVs. Beyond that I don’t get freaking out about taking one of the risks over the others.

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

@LEAFANFORLIFE23 Now is the time for your Leafs need a goaltender thread.

I actually have a certain level of confidence in Samsonov, it's not extremely high yet because it's only been 2 games but so far so good.

Kallgren on the other hand I'm not confident in.

 

[Ianturnedbull]

Husso didn’t have a good playoffs at all I mostly would have been interested in him due to his age.
Overall every available goalie came with huge risks. I’m glad we avoided Campbell and Kemper due to their cost and AAVs. Beyond that I don’t get freaking out about taking one of the risks over the others.

Matt Murray had 5 wins last season with OTT.

Matt Murray missed the last 28 regular season games due to injury.

Matt Murray was placed on waivers last season with Ottawa.

Do you blame leaf fans for freaking out.
Which often injured player even compares?
Despite Campbell's rollercoaster season he did have 49 starts.

 

[cyris]

Matt Murray had 5 wins last season with OTT.

Matt Murray missed the last 28 regular season games due to injury.

Matt Murray was placed on waivers last season with Ottawa.

Do you blame leaf fans for freaking out.
Which often injured player even compares?
Despite Campbell's rollercoaster season he did have 49 starts.

k……
Matt Murray has also lead a team to a Stanley Cup. Twice.
He came with a bunch of risks but so did every other option out there.

But hey if you want to freak out go for it. I already told you I don’t care what you do. Maybe you can hold another emergency Leaf’s board meeting.

 

[Leaf4Life79]

I was literally at the game... saw him come out for warmup... I had no idea he got injured.. thought nothing of it when Samsonov took net... IN MY BRAIN!!! I was thinking, ok... Samsonov played a real good game the game before... lets go with him.... even though there was talk of him playing against his team.... f***... Well at least we can recall some goons and Robertson... lets hope Sammy can stay healthy!

Leaf's should destroy the Yotes tonight! LETS GO!!!!!!!

 

[TheTotalPackage]

Please don't label people "armchair medical experts" because they didn't like Dubas' risky trade for Murray.

We knew this was a big risk. His injuries are substantial. A new type of injury doesn't excuse Dubas' risky transaction. The only reason people are calling for Dubas' dismissal is because Samsungov had a good couple of games.

I for one am not convinced we are out of the woods. What happens if Samsungov gets injured? We are going to be satisfied with Kallgren and a 4th string goalie?

Don't worry. I'm rooting for the good guys. I want this to work out no matter what.

This post is funny because Samsonov was spelled as Samsungov not only once, but twice.

 

[Puckstuff]

Husso didn’t have a good playoffs at all I mostly would have been interested in him due to his age.
Overall every available goalie came with huge risks. I’m glad we avoided Campbell and Kemper due to their cost and AAVs. Beyond that I don’t get freaking out about taking one of the risks over the others.

Charlie Lindgren was another interesting goalie. He was like the Michael Bunting of goalie free agents in the sense that he had a small sample size in the NHL of very elite numbers and very, very good numbers in the AHL but never proven so he came cheap. He has much better AHL numbers then Kallgren for example though. I'm shocked he got only 1.1 million per year. I think the best option would have been a Lindgren-Samsonov tandem for less then 3 million.

 

[cyris]

Charlie Lindgren was another interesting goalie. He was like the Michael Bunting of goalie free agents in the sense that he had a small sample size in the NHL of very elite numbers and very, very good numbers in the AHL but never proven so he came cheap. He has much better AHL numbers then Kallgren for example though. I'm shocked he got only 1.1 million per year. I think the best option would have been a Lindgren-Samsonov tandem for less then 3 million.

Lindgren definitely would have been an interesting option. I also liked Comrie as an option at the time.
But both would have been seen as unproven and big a risk because of it.
I do wonder if they would have done things differently if they had known Samsonov was going to be available. A lot of moves around the league happened before Washington declined to qualify him. If they had known they could have gotten someone like him with experience as a starter cheap maybe they are willing to take the risk on an unproven backup with potential.

 

[kb]

It's laughable the amount of internet posters that come on here pat themselves on the back for hindsight navel gazing. "I knew player X would be better, stupid -----" when they have no understanding of the what the market was, what reasonably available alternatives existed, and hilariously making final judgements 3 games into the season.

Sadly, this just reaffirms how this place just keeps sinking to new lows with regards to rational thought and intelligent posts worthy of discussion or debate. Many newer posters have come in here belligerent and combative with zero to contribute joining in to the many 'like minded brethren' already here who have created an environment where the thoughtful, intelligent, rational ones have left/are leaving in droves because they are tired of reading posts that lack any form of logical thought process (just emotional outbursts) that passes for posts here.

And watch who responds negatively to this....those are the ones I am referring to. They can't help themselves.

There are perhaps 2 or 3 relative "sure shots", and the rest are all the same. Question marks. Whether it be health or a lack of a track record of success - or spotty recent play - there were a grand total of zero goalies available from the "sure shot" department....that's why they don't move. And now people patting themselves on the back based on hindsight picks 2-3 games into the season is frankly hilarious.

 

[ACC1224]

Friedman said Murray wasn’t our first or second choice this off-season, when those fell through Dubas changed gears and went after a Murray.

If that’s true that is very disappointing. You have to make things happen, you can’t sit around and hope things fall into place.

 

[Nineteen67]

I don’t disagree for the most part. I don’t think goaltending has been our downfall but it certainly hasn’t been good enough either.
I mostly object to the people having a complete meltdown about our goaltending situation right now even tho it’s been okay so far overall. And complaining about the huge risk Dubas took even tho most of the goalie options this summer looked pretty risky.

Goaltending was a weakness the day he took over as GM and he‘s failed to fix it.

 

[Nineteen67]

And where are these reasonable alternatives?

It seems that unless you have Vasilevsky, it is really just getting lucky. Binnington for STL came out of nowhere. Holtby returning to Vezina form after being far from it during the regular season. Kuemper wasn't even all that good for Colorado but he was enough for them to win. And then you have the guy who the Leafs brought in who also came out of nowhere winning for PIT.

Even Crawford was not a top goalie before he won at 28. Vasilevsky and Quick were really the only ones in the past decade with a prior history of play and were able to win. Both were drafted and developed.

We've had guys who have mostly done fine in the regular season (especially pre-injury Andersen), but then fail miserably once the Leafs finally get in a spot to win. Since Dubas has taken over, I haven't seen any goalies made available who look like they can change that. Markstrom flopped in the playoffs. Lehner did the same. The vast majority of the rest were drafted, and were drafted before Dubas was in charge of this team.

I am not the biggest fan of the goalies that Dubas has drafted, but there have also not been many goalies in general who look like they would have been great selections (although it is still early for many of them) and it does nothing to really help the Leafs right now. And even in the Hunter years, there have only been 4 guys who, at least so far, turned into anything that could somewhat resemble a starter (either now or in the future) and the Leafs have one of them (Samsonov).

At this point, fixing goaltending is the same as trying to fix a bullpen in baseball. You can throw money at it, but there is no guarantee it turns into success because it is volatile for the most part. You can have success in the regular season and then suck in the playoffs or vice versa. There are obviously some guys who are better or more likely to turn out than others, but those guys are usually not available and then when you weed out those options, you are not left with much better than what the Leafs went with. And unlike many other teams, the Leafs didn't have to spend a lot on goaltending to get their tandem so they have money to spend on areas where investment is more likely to yield returns.

You could have just as easily said, yes he has failed to fix the goaltending problem.

 

[DarkKnight]

Yeah that is how it looked. I think Husso and Fleury were guys he was looking at but neither made it to free agency. And really all the guys who were available carried some level of risk

Well he still has one chip left, spin the wheel!

 

[Niagara Bill]

Who says Simmonds even plays. He is likely injury insurance. Furthermore he is reportedly very well liked and respected by the Leafs players. To the point that he was never forced to report to the Marlies and just continued to practice with the non roster players.
While you may not want to see Simmonds anywhere near the team at this point it doesn’t mean the players feel the same way that you do.


Okay what was the alternative?

Trade for a goalie who doesn't get injured after 1 game.

So you would just take 20 players on a 5 game road trip and leave the available cap unused rather than have 3 players come along as insurance?

Can you expand on your thought process because on the surface it seems to be an incredibly stupid one.

No, bring Robertson for emergency, but DO NOT bring Simmonds and play him for someone who made the team. Robertson made the team and was only down due to waivers. Simmonds did not beat out anyone. If one of the hyphen guys sits fir Simmons, why did we sign them. We made this decision 10 days ago.
If Mete plays and Sandin sits after 3 games Keefe should be fired. Sandin is either a dman or cut his butt. Enough of using scapegoats...Keefe use of players is an issue with this team.

 

[francis246]

He's out a minimum of 4 weeks - so nothing has changed since I posted it? Unless he's magically returned and no one knows about it?


So they, a cap strapped team, acquired a guy with 2 years left @ $4.7M, just to make someone else the guy?

Do you not think this stuff through before you hit Post Reply?

Did I say that? No I said the leafs acquired Matt Murray knowing that if he ever got injured, they could take advantage of LTIR given their cap situation and have Samsonov who they believe in equally. I don’t think they like one goalie over the other. I think they acquired two they are happy with. Matt Murray wasn’t brought to be the guy. He was brought in to battle and be part of a true tandem this year. Not really a hard concept to grasp

 

[francis246]

@Tak7 when the link comes up I will link Darren Dreger on First Up. He just backed up my claim. He literally just said that this injury could be a 5 day injury; but given the leafs cap situation they are taking advantage of LTIR and just giving Matt Murray extra time to recover. Said basically it was a bit fishy that he went on LTIR. Given the original notes after injury. Aka basically this is more of a cap move rather than a major injury.