One reason why the Leafs may have a really tough time moving Matt Murray this summer

There has been a lot of talk in recent weeks, stemming back to the playoffs, that the Leafs may look to roll an Ilya Samsonov/Joseph Woll tandem next season, which will leave Matt Murray on the outside looking in. With Murray's injury history, some are suggesting that he could spend the final year of his deal on LTIR in Toronto, but if he's healthy enough to play, the Leafs won't simply be able to stash him on LTIR anyway. As a result, a trade or a buyout seems like the most likely outcome here.

On yesterday's coverage of Leafs Lunch on TSN1050, hosts Michael Distefano and former Leaf Peter Holland touched on this in some detail, revealing that a buyout would cost the Leafs $687K next season, with $2M in dead cap space the following season. They also revealed that, while Murray's AAV in total is $6.25M (25% retained by Ottawa), his actual salary this season is actually $8M. So, if they are going to move him, they likely will have to attach an asset to him to sweeten the pot for a rival team.

When the Leafs took on Murray from Ottawa last summer, they received a 3rd round pick and a 7th round pick as compensation and had the Sens eat that 25% on his deal. The Leafs took on Murray with the idea that he would play out the full 2 years left on his deal in Toronto. They did it knowing that his $8M in actual salary was coming. So, unfortunately, if the Leafs want to move Murray this summer, they may be forced to retain salary and sweeten the pot to move him as well. Distefano and Holland even believe it may cost the Leafs a similar price to what they paid to move Marleau to Carolina. The Leafs had to attach a 1st round pick to Marleau in that deal.

As mentioned above, the other option is to just buy him out, but as Distefano and Holland mentioned on Leafs Lunch, if the Leafs do that and if the cap only goes up by $2M in the summer of 2024, they will essentially be spending all of their cap increase money on dead salary for Murray. Not an ideal situation to be in if you're the Leafs here.