Pierre Dorion explains how Murray trade to the Leafs came together

Ottawa Senators general manager Pierre Dorion clearly isn’t afraid of talking to — or about — the Toronto Maple Leafs.

In his time in charge of Toronto’s provincial rival, Dorion’s made two big trades with the Leafs: a 2019 move that saw Connor Brown and Nikita Zaitsev join Ottawa in exchange for Cody Ceci, and a trade last summer that sent former Senators goalie Matt Murray to Toronto for a pair of draft picks.

And in an interview released today, Dorion explained the impetus behind sending Murray to Toronto.

“It wasn’t really complicated,” Dorion told the Cam & Strick Podcast. “Sometimes you trade a fourth liner for a pick and those take 17 calls. This one was three or four calls.”

Originally acquired from the Pittsburgh Penguins in the summer of 2020, Murray had a record of 15-25-3 in 47 games with a goals against average of 3.23 and a save percentage of .899 for the Senators across his two seasons with the team.

With two years left on Murray’s contract, the Senators opted to retain 25% of the deal, paying out $1.56 million of his $6.25 million cap hit, with Toronto covering the remaining 75%.

Though Murray had won two Stanley Cups early in his career with the Penguins, he’d never quite found year-over-year NHL success since his first two seasons in the league back in 2015-16 and 2016-17, as injury struggles hampered his progress in both of his previous pro stops.

“Both [former Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas and Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe] had a history with [Murray]”, Dorion said, referencing the trio’s time together with the OHL’s Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. “It wasn’t working out in Ottawa, we just made a deal… we went back and forth, it wasn’t really complicated.”

Dorion added that the early stages of the deal began during discussions at the 2022 draft in Montreal on July 7 and 8, before being officially closed on July 11.

“They were looking for a goaltender… we talked at the draft, we said we’ll talk when we got back. They wanted to see the medical reports to make sure everything was okay, we granted them. Then [the Leafs and Senators] doctors talked, everything was good. A few days later we made the deal,” Dorion added.

Unfortunately for Toronto, Murray’s injury struggles continued, as three separate issues kept him out of the lineup for multiple stretches this past season. He had a record of 14-8-2 in 26 games with a goals against average of 3.01 and a save percentage of .903 for the Leafs this past season.

The full interview with Dorion is available here.

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