Matt Murray compared former injury-prone Leafs goalie

The Toronto Maple Leafs and general manager Kyle Dubas in particular took a tremendous risk by overhauling their goaltending this summer, electing to part ways with Jack Campbell and Petr Mrazek while bringing aboard Matt Murray and Ilya Samsonov. 

The good news for the Leafs and their fans right now is that for the most part, the move has worked out just fine so far. The team has officially parted ways for a little over a week for the NHL All-Star break, and as it currently stands, the Leafs are second overall in the Atlantic Division. It's Samsonov who has gotten the bulk of stars, and boasts a strong record of 17-6-2 with a 2.42 goals against average and .913 save percentage. 

And that's not a knock at Murray's numbers, who is 11-5-2 with a 2.73 goals against average and .911 save percentage. You'll notice that he's only appeared in 19 games this season, and that's because he's once again run into injury trouble.

And right now, he's currently on the shelf after his ankle injury flared up; according to head coach Sheldon Keefe, Murray is “going require some time, for sure” to heal up. And this isn't the first time that he's missed time. Does this draw some parallels to a certain former Danish Leafs net minder by the name of Frederik Andersen? According to Nick Kypreos, it does.

Take a look at an excerpt from his latest contribution piece to The Toronto Star: 

"Wednesday night’s 5-2 loss to the Boston Bruins didn’t exactly help the case for Ilya Samsonov, who allowed three goals on seven shots in the third period. How comfortable will they feel with whoever is staring down Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy.

Ironically, the current situation is eerily similar to the one that played out with former Leafs netminder Frederik Andersen in the Amazon Prime docuseries “All or Nothing” that followed the team during the 2020-21 season.

Perhaps we saw another version of that uncertainty start to play out last Friday. After that unexpected and lengthy knee injury, Andersen never regained his status as the Leafs’ No. 1 goaltender. Could it be happening again with Murray’s latest setback, combined with the growing belief in Samsonov?" 

As you may know, Andersen has found success with the Carolina Hurricanes - when he's healthy enough to play, that is. Just how similar is his time with the Leafs to Murray?