Matt Murray's agent raising suspicion after refusing to comment on Murray's health status
The Leafs announced last week that Matt Murray would be placed on LTIR to start season, effectively freeing up an additional $4.68M of salary cap space and joining Jake Muzzin and his $5.6M in the press box. There have been many questions about the move as Murray was deemed to be "healthy" enough to play in the playoffs if needed and many are claiming the Leafs are attempting to circumvent the cap.
News flash for all of the people who are accusing the Leafs of taking advantage of a CBA loophole, every team does it, including Tampa and Vegas the last few seasons and just as Chicago did with Patrick Kane in 2015. There is also a difference between being healthy and being "healthy" in the playoffs and if people looked at the injury lists for teams after they are eliminated from the playoffs, they would know that. Aaron Ekblad played with multiple broken bones in his feet among other injuries but was "healthy" enough to play. Matthew Tkachuk on the other hand was not.
Murray was likely still dealing with an injury when he was deemed to be healthy enough to play the same way Ilya Samsonov played the majority of the playoffs nursing an injury. Since the announcement of Murray being placed on LTIR, everyone is wondering what exactly is hindering Murray from being able to play next season. The Athletic's James Mirtle reached out to Murray's agent, Robert Hooper from Octagon, like I'm sure many other media members have, but to no avail. Murray's agent, and Murray for that matter, have remained very quiet about his situation and are likely hoping for some news about Auston Matthews or William Nylander so that they can fade into the background.
When the Leafs acquired Murray last off-season, the question was always "can he stay healthy?" and, unfortunately, he wasn't able. Murray missed a total of three months with various injuries last season and only managed to play in 26 games for the Leafs. In those 26 games he went 14-8-2 while posting a .903 save percentage and 3.01 GAA - not terrible numbers but also not great compared to Samsonov. At 29, Murray is still young enough to rebound and resume his NHL career, but if he does hang up his skates for injury-related reasons, I hope we can finally put this cap circumvention narrative to bed.
| POLL | ||
AOUT 1 | 516 ANSWERS Matt Murray's agent raising suspicion after refusing to comment on Murray's health status Do you believe Matt Murray's injury is legitimate? | ||
| Yes | 191 | 37 % |
| No | 184 | 35.7 % |
| Don't know, don't care | 141 | 27.3 % |
| List of polls | ||
