Leafs' Matt Murray opens up about injury struggles and new hope

Matt Murray is hoping to finally make his mark on the Toronto Maple Leafs this season.

After sitting out all of last year with a series of injuries, the 30-year-old Thunder Bay native is hoping to regain the form that made him one of the NHL’s most electric goalies early in his NHL career.

Murray signed a one-year deal with the Leafs for $875,000 this summer and hopes to play in NHL games for the first time in nearly two years.

Acquired from the Ottawa Senators in a 2022 trade, Murray went 14-8-2 in 26 games with a goals against average of 3.01 and a save percentage of .903 for the Maple Leafs in the 2022-23 campaign. This past season, Murray played just three games in the AHL for the Toronto Marlies, putting up a .846 save percentage and a 4.06 goals against average, before undergoing hip surgery last October.

But the veteran goalie isn’t counting himself out just yet.

Speaking to Travis Ridgen and Dave Wheeler on the Slangin’ the Bizkit Podcast, Murray detailed what the last 12 months have been like for him while sidelined from NHL action.

“I think when your hips stop working properly, you got, you know, you compensate in other areas for sure… So up until January of [2023] I never had an issue on my left side ever for anything. Every injury was always on my right side. So get the hip done, and then all of a sudden, my left ankle is killing me,” Murray said.

“I just knew that I was just getting hurt too much and on plays that I felt like I shouldn’t really be getting hurt on and felt like it had something to do with, like alignment, or, obviously, the fact that I was compensating for the pain in my hips elsewhere,” Murray added.

Murray is likely third on the depth chart behind Joseph Woll and Anthony Stolarz, but he’s looking to prove he’s still got value as an NHL option.

“This year’s just about proving that I can stay healthy and that I got a nice little reset with the surgery.”

The full episode is available below: