On Sunday night, the Maple Leafs suffered a meaningless loss to the Detroit Red Wings given the fact that they are already locked into a first round Stanley Cup playoff matchup with the Tampa Bay Lightning. In spite of that, the Maple Leafs would walk away from the loss feeling dejected for a variety of reasons with the injury to veteran goaltender Matt Murray being the most notable one.
Murray was injured by what appears to have been a freak accident when Red Wings forward Lucas Raymond lost his footing and slid into the back of Murray’s legs. Raymond’s forward momentum was enough to sweep Murray’s legs out from under him, sending the Leafs netminder soaring through the air before landing hard on the ice. The worst part though would be Murray, who has had concussion issues throughout his career, smacking the back of his head on the ice in sickening fashion as a result of the fall.
We would learn later during the game that Murray would not return, and although there has been no update on his status it sounds like there is genuine concern among his teammates. Fellow goalrender Ilya Samsonov, who doesn’t have a flawless grasp of English, offered up some truly heartfelt comments about his injured teammate following the game.
“I’m sad,” admitted the Russian goaltender. “This is hard. Hard for him. Hard for [his] family, yeah, first one, & hard for team. It’s hard for us. It’s third one. We don’t know long-term or whatever. Third injury is really hard and I’m so sad about it.”
There has as of yet been no official update on Murray, but as always I hope he will make a full and speedy recovery.
