Sheldon Keefe says Matt Murray has been dealing with an injury for a while, Leafs to recall a goalie soon
Matt Murray is hurt.
Sheldon Keefe on Matt Murray: He’s been dealing with something that flared up tonight so he wasn’t able to play @TSN_Edge
— Mark Masters (@markhmasters) January 28, 2023
So yeah, here we go again with the Matt Murray injury stuff and while the injury is not something you want to see him deal with, the fact that it was already known may explain some of the issues we’ve seen in Murray’s game during his last couple of starts where his reaction time hasn’t been the best.
Sheldon Keefe on the last-minute turn to Ilya Samsonov: “It put (Samsonov) in a terrible spot, so there’s that. Terrible, terrible spot. And then we didn’t take care of him when he was in there.”
— Jonas Siegel (@jonassiegel) January 28, 2023
There’s a bit of an understatement too. Samsonov’s home streak came to an end in probably the worst possible fashion, as the Leafs have apparently been operating without a safety net. An odd thing to do when they have an abundance of goaltenders in their system, it seems like keeping someone around Toronto while the Marlies are out west wouldn’t have been too difficult, but whatever. It still would have been Samsonov’s start at the last minute, they just would have been able to get him out of there when it was clear the rest of the team were no shows.
Anyways, this isn’t about the turd of the game against the Sens, this is about Matt Murray and his injury, that will likely see him out of the Leafs lineup until at least the All-Star break (just seems like an obvious thing to guess at) and given that it’s Friday night we can probably expect a more definitive timeline sometime between tomorrow and Tuesday.
As for who comes up, it probably depends on if the Leafs have any intention of putting them into a game. I don’t know how interested the Leafs are in putting up a newly recalled goaltender into action on Sunday, especially in a start that Samsonov wants against the Capitals. The only other game before the break is against the Bruins and that feels like feeding an AHL goaltender into a wood chipper. If it’s merit based, expect Woll. If it’s experience based, expect Kallgren. If it’s just looking for a dude to wear a ball cap, why not Keith Petruzzelli? With the Marlies in Winnipeg facing the Manitoba Moose, the Leafs will have to make their decision quickly so their goalie can embark on the long bus ride back to Toronto.
