{"id":643503,"date":"2026-05-02T18:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T18:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/643503\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T18:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T18:14:08","slug":"oilers-connor-murphy-gets-4-4-million-contract-update-after-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/643503\/","title":{"rendered":"Oilers’ Connor Murphy gets $4.4 million contract update after trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Edmonton Oilers<\/a> didn’t take advantage of picking up Connor Murphy at the NHL trade deadline from the Chicago Blackhawks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t Murphy’s fault, though — he was a quality acquisition.<\/p>\n

The reason Murphy was available in the first place was that he was on an expiring contract. He’s heading for free agency now.<\/p>\n

The Oilers will have to decide whether Murphy is a guy they bring back. Given that the rest of their defensive unit isn’t up to par, Murphy seems like a key player to retain.<\/p>\n

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It’ll likely cost a decent amount. He was just earning $4.4 million this past season, and it could be similar in a new contract, too.<\/p>\n

“Murphy opened the year looking like a complete afterthought in Chicago, barely getting 14 minutes a night, to the point I surmised GM Kyle Davidson had missed the selling window,” Daily Faceoff’s Matt Larkin wrote in a new article on Friday<\/a>. “But Murphy found a groove working on the NHL\u2019s top-ranked penalty kill unit, his minutes rose, and he wound up garnering a second-round pick in a trade to Edmonton. Murphy immediately stepped into top-four minutes with the Oilers and suddenly looks like a player who could match his previous AAV on his next deal, even at 33. He brings size, veteran leadership and right handedness, after all.”<\/p>\n

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Murphy will be one of the best defenseman conceptually available in unrestricted free agency, and certainly one of the most polished actual defensive players of the group.<\/p>\n

That will put him in demand for any contender that wants to shore things up on the back end a bit.,<\/p>\n

The Oilers seem likely to be involved as they try to salvage a bounceback season for their Connor McDavid-led core. But they’ll surely have competition, and someone may have to pay up to land Murphy.<\/p>\n

More NHL news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Edmonton Oilers didn’t take advantage of picking up Connor Murphy at the NHL trade deadline from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":["post-643503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-edmonton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643503","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=643503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}