Murphy had 17 points (five goals, 12 assists) in 80 regular-season games for the Oilers and Chicago Blackhawks this season, including four points (one goal, three assists) in 20 games after he was acquired by Edmonton in a trade on March 2 for a second-round pick in the 2028 NHL Draft.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a part of Edmonton, my family and myself felt super welcomed and really felt like we hit it off with the team, with the families, the wives and the kids, having a two-year-old now,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cWe wanted something that where we are, we\u2019re going to be happy and comfortable with.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the team, the hockey environment and high-end talent and the ceiling of what the team is capable of, really strives a lot of motivation and passion that I felt I revitalized with since being traded. So, it made that excitement to make it a top priority to keep it going and there wasn\u2019t another situation that could have captured that going into free agency.\u201d<\/p>\n
Selected by the Phoenix Coyotes in the first round (No. 20) of the 2011 NHL Draft, Murphy has 177 points (48 goals, 129 assists) in 825 regular-season games for the Coyotes, Blackhawks and Oilers, and seven points (two goals, five assists) in 15 career playoff games.<\/p>\n
Prior to arriving in Edmonton, Murphy had not played a playoff game since 2020 with Chicago. His ice time this season increased from 16:34 in Chicago to 20:27 with Edmonton in a top-four role before averaging 21:17 in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy role defined at this point in my career has been pretty straightforward about being a defenseman that\u2019s hard to play against and trying to limit chances against, and trying to bring some competitiveness and leadership where I can,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cI don\u2019t see changing my game, but I do hope to get the best out of my game. I still think I have better to prove, so I hopefully, whatever staff is implemented, I can continue to grow my game and find ways to continue to be more effective and help the team in better ways that I ever have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edmonton is the only team in the NHL currently without a coach after firing Kris Knoblauch on May 14, two weeks after being eliminated.<\/p>\n
The Oilers, who have qualified for the playoffs every season since 2019-20, lost to the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final in both 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just trying to add pieces to the puzzle that\u2019s been in place for years,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to (complement) those star players and a lot of the core that\u2019s been there. We want to try to bring strengths of our game that can hopefully help the team in a defensive way and in a playing way all around.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Murphy had 17 points (five goals, 12 assists) in 80 regular-season games for the Oilers and Chicago Blackhawks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-720750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}