The Leafs and Ilya Samsonov are scheduled to meet with an arbitrator on Friday if they are unable to reach an agreement on a new contract beforehand. Many insiders believe that an agreement will be reached before the hearing on Friday and that Samsonov filing for arbitration was done to help the Leafs and their cap situation by opening a second buyout window for them. After not buying out Matt Murray during the first buyout window, everyone has suspected that as soon as the second buyout window opens, Murray will be bought out by the Leafs.
Unfortunately for the Leafs, there is a possibility that they may not be able to buy Murray out, according to Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman. Friedman was on the NHL Network on Tueaday and when asked about Samsonov and Murray, had this to say:
"There are some questions about Murray's health... I think the biggest question was going to be if the Leafs were going to be able to buy him out if they wanted to. If the answer is no, they can't do that cause of his health, I think he's either not going to play and he's going to be put on LTIR or they're going to have to trade him somewhere with a sweetener. I do think this one is going to get sorted out. They don't seem concerned about their cap situation. I think they're going to work out a solution with Murray."
According to Friedman, Murray may not be eligible to be bought out given the injuries he sustained last year and the amount of time he missed because of them. In a way though, if the Leafs are unable to buy out or trade Murray, is placing him on LTIR for the season really a bad thing? They don't have to give up a prospect and/or picks to move his salary and they don't get hit with a $2M cap hit next season for the second year of his buyout. That doesn't seem like too bad of an option to me.
