One Maple Leaf may play a more significant role this season than many think
Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Matt Murray is now healthy and ready to provide some relief to the inexperienced Joseph Woll and Anthony Stolarz if needed.
It came as a bit of a surprise to Leafs fans when the team announced they had re-signed Murray to a 1-year deal that will see him earn just $875K for the 2024-2025 season. Many expected Martin Jones to return as the Leafs' third-stringer, but it's simply not how it all worked out for the team and the player after an otherwise satisfactory 2023-24 partnership.
Murray returns to the Leafs after missing all of last season while he underwent and rehabbed from double-hip surgery. His missed season comes on the heels of the 2022-23 season where he played in just 26 games for the Leafs.
During the 2022-23 season, Murray posted a 14-8-2 record, 3.01 GAA and .903 save percentage. Now that he is healthy, Murray could play a much larger role for the Leafs this season than many people expect.
Due to the lack of experience for both Woll and Stolarz in a starter's role, the Leafs will likely need Murray to step in to play the odd stretch of games to allow Stolarz and Woll to recover as their bodies adjust to playing more than 30 games in a season. Neither of them have played more than 30 games in the regular season with Woll's career high of 25 games coming last year and Stolarz's high of 28 coming in the 2020-2021 season.
Although Woll and Stolarz are undoubtedly the Leafs' duo for the season, Murray projects to play a much larger role than initially thought. It may surprise you to learn that Murray is only 30 years old, so it's not as if he's over the hill. If the injuries truly were hampering his performance for so long, perhaps now that he's dealt with the root cause of the problem, his improved mobility will lead to a better overall performance, which will only benefit the Maple Leafs.
Obviously, we don't know what his actual role will be this season and we may not know that until the midway point in the season. However, if Murray can give the Leafs, say, 10 quality starts this season, it would be hard to see that as anything other than a win, especially when you consider where he was just 1 year ago.
If Murray can get to those 10 starts, then it would leave Stolarz and Woll to compete for the remaining 72 starts, which could equate to 36 starts apiece, or perhaps 40 for one of them, and 32 for the other, which isn't all that much of a steep increase from where they both finished last season.
The real area of intrigue here is what might happen if Murray gets an extended run and actually plays well. Should the injury bug bite either Stolarz or Woll, if Murray gets an extended look and starts winning games, would be a good problem to have, but we could very well end up with a goalie controversy on our hands in Toronto.
It should be a very interesting year in the crease for the Toronto Maple Leafs and their trio of capable netminders.
Source: Hockey Reference Joseph Woll Career Statistics
| POLL | ||
23 JUILLET | 501 ANSWERS One Maple Leaf may play a more significant role this season than many think How many games will Murray play for the Leafs this season? | ||
| 0 | 114 | 22.8 % |
| 1-10 | 239 | 47.7 % |
| 11-15 | 99 | 19.8 % |
| 20+ | 49 | 9.8 % |
| List of polls | ||
