Despite not playing on Wednesday, he couldn\u2019t be more excited to finally be in Edmonton \u2013 but this time to stay \u2013 after his longest stop in the city came during the COVID bubble.<\/p>\n
\u201cEdmonton has been a top team that I\u2019ve had my sights set on since I knew something might happen,\u201d he said. \u201cJust to be here is definitely surreal. Definitely a lot of excitement to get started.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, it\u2019s time to put those defensive skills to the test and make the most of his opportunity for an Oilers team that\u2019s focused on reducing its goals against, improving its penalty kill, and pushing for the playoffs for another chance at competing for the Stanley Cup.<\/p>\n
Edmonton\u2019s new number five fits that mould perfectly after registering a 2.47 goals against per hour at five-on-five with him on the ice while leading all Chicago defenders in blocked shots (87) and total PK TOI (177:17) for their top-ranked penalty kill this season.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Defending] is kind of all I’ve done,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cMy career has been a lot of penalty killing and defensive zone time; not intentionally being in the D zone a lot, but that\u2019s where I’m comfortable using more of my defending and using my instincts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve settled into that role for a few years now and have been really comfortable doing it, and I think that’s any team’s goal is to defend hard. It’s a team game to check and to give that mentality on your own end, but it’s definitely something I take pride in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having played nine NHL seasons with the Arizona Coyotes and Chicago Blackhawks, Murphy has played only nine playoff games that include an upset win over the Oilers during the bubble in 2020, but he\u2019s eager at this stage of his career to chase titles, and Edmonton\u2019s a perfect fit for his abilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this point in my career, winning is a top priority, and I’ve had a lot of opportunity given to me being on losing teams in the past when I came up with Arizona and a few years with Chicago, getting more ice time that way and feeling comfortable with my role,\u201d he said. \u201cNow, I really just want to play meaningful games, and with that comes pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite not playing on Wednesday, he couldn\u2019t be more excited to finally be in Edmonton \u2013 but this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":{"0":"post-514841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-edmonton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}