GM winning goalie gamble
Murray, Samsonov backstop fourth-best save percentage in league
When Kyle Dubas met reporters after the first day of free agency in July, the first question he fielded was on goaltending.
As was the third, fourth, fifth and eighth.
There was no topic more debated and second-guessed around the Maple Leafs entering this season, no storyline carrying anywhere near as much sizzle. In fact you would have found near unanimous consensus in the city that the position loomed as the single greatest point of failure threatening the entire operation.
So as we sit here in early December, with the Leafs having used three different men at the position in basically three equal parts, it’s pretty remarkable just how wrong everybody was.
The Leafs are scorching hot entering Thursday’s meeting with Los Angeles. And they have kept Boston within sight in the Atlantic Division in large part due to owning the fourth-best team save percentage in the league.
At a time when Edmonton is dealing with a major case of buyer’s remorse with Jack Campbell, and Jacob Markstrom is losing his grip on the starter’s role in Calgary, and the Kings are paying Cal Petersen $5 million (U.S.) to play in the American Hockey League, the Leafs are thriving with two men who were riding the AHL buses themselves at this stage last year and a third who wasn’t extended a qualifying offer by a Cup hopeful after posting a sub-.900 save percentage.
The biggest bet Dubas and his staff made was on Matt Murray, who carried an injury file so robust that the Ottawa Senators took the rare step of granting the Leafs permission to put him through a physical before completing a July 11 trade. The Senators also wound up paying the Leafs third- and seventh-round draft picks to take Murray off their hands while retaining 25 per cent of his salary.
“It was either make that deal or move on elsewhere, and we elected to make the deal,” Dubas said at the time.
Viewed in the context of the other choices available to them in a thin goaltending market, that decision now looks like a screaming home run.
Murray is the NHL’s sixth-best performer in goals saved above expected, according to moneypuck.com, and he’s coming off a 44-save shutout in Dallas that was arguably as good as any in his career.
He also posted a 42-save win last week in Detroit.
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What attracted Dubas to Murray was his Stanley Cup pedigree, and a stretch of games he put together for the Senators last January and February following his AHL recall. There were signs to be found there that he was finding his game after making some significant stylistic changes with an eye toward being able to move better laterally around his crease.
There was also reason to believe he would find it easier to play behind a top team that allows fewer shots and chances than the 2021-22 Senators. Even with the Leafs’ string of blue-line injuries and a couple recent high-event nights, they are still among the NHL’s best at limiting shots against.
While there is still obviously injury risk with Murray, who missed more than a month with an adductor issue before returning in November, there is much less overall risk to the organization because he is only signed through the end of next season.
That made him more attractive than Campbell, who left Toronto for a whopping $25-million, fiveyear offer from the Oilers and has struggled to the point of losing his starter’s job to Stuart Skinner.
Murray is younger, takes up slightly less cap space and accounts for three less years on the books than the man he replaced.
Toronto also made a low-risk bet on Ilya Samsonov, a former firstround pick who signed a one-year “prove it” contract after a rough year in Washington and is providing major value with 6.8 goals saved above expected — the eighth-best mark in the league.
The Leafs have even managed to stay above water when calling on third-stringer Erik Källgren, who, entering Thursday, had logged more minutes (562) than either (539) or Samsonov (516).
It appears that pundits and fans missed the mark in evaluating Dubas’s goaltending decisions mostly because they essentially criticized him for not securing a sure thing from a marketplace without sure things.
The reality is that, for many NHL teams, goaltending has become a little like a trip to the blackjack table: You’re hoping to catch a hot stretch and walk away before the tide turns. Long-term commitments are extremely dangerous because the longer you sit at the table, the more likely you are to endure a string of unfavourable results.
Dubas left himself the wiggle room necessary to pivot in alternate directions, if need be, and he found players with strong upside potential. On the opening day of training camp he told reporters he had “a lot of faith” in both his goaltending department and the goaltenders themselves.
Those comments have aged well. Just like the series of bets the general manager made last summer.