EDMONTON — Connor Murphy never played a truly meaningful regular-season game during his nine seasons in Chicago. A playoff spot never hung in the balance. So-called must-wins weren’t about jockeying for position in the Central Division, they were about pulling out of yet another tailspin, about building some desperately needed confidence. The games never meant anything in the big picture.
But they meant a lot to Murphy, all the same. All the forgettable January contests against the Nashville Predators or the Anaheim Ducks or whomever. All the blowout losses to the Colorado Avalanche or the Florida Panthers or whomever. All the games that skirted the fine line between humbling and humiliating, between frustrating and perfunctory.
“The mindset’s always to win,” Murphy said. “Yes, the team had a lot of losing years in Chicago. But as a player, when you’re out there, you’re trying to win every game you can to the best of your ability. You’re showing up with the same amount of nerves, honestly, and the same amount of pressure on yourself to put a (good) performance out there. (We) obviously didn’t show a lot of results for the team for a while, but no matter where you are, you just want to be a pro and want to play your game to your fullest ability and win and compete as hard as you can.”
Still, there was a gaping hole in Murphy’s resume — in Murphy’s very soul — that he’s been waiting a dozen years to fill: to play in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The real Stanley Cup playoffs, not that sterile, silent bubble the Blackhawks played in during the pandemic playoffs. Murphy is just a little more than two weeks away from finally realizing that dream, from finally playing in front of nearly 20,000 delirious fans in a truly meaningful game, a game with real stakes, a game people will remember.
And coincidentally enough, it’s probably going to be in Edmonton.
After nearly a decade as the Blackhawks’ defensive stopper, Connor Murphy is hoping for a long playoff run with the Edmonton Oilers. (Stephen R. Sylvanie / Imagn Images)
“I’m very excited,” said Murphy, who was dealt from the Blackhawks to the Oilers ahead of the trade deadline last month. “Since I’ve been here, the games have been really meaningful, each one, for the standings. … Every day, I’ve just tried to take it as serious and focused as I can, knowing the end goal to get to the playoffs and push for a run will be a dream come true.”
But as Murphy fills a hole in his heart, he leaves a hole in Chicago. For nearly a decade, for six different head coaches, Murphy had been a rock on the Blackhawks’ back end. Killing a penalty? Murphy was on the ice. Protecting a one-goal lead late in the third? Murphy was on the ice. Facing one of the league’s most dangerous players? Murphy was on the ice. He was the quintessential defensive defenseman, and it was that seriousness of purpose — even in the face of all that losing — that made him so steady, so valuable. It didn’t matter that he scored just 34 goals in nine seasons, because his job was to prevent goals, not produce them. And aside from a couple of off years, he did it well. Reliably. Consistently.
Whom does Jeff Blashill turn to now? Who’s the next generation’s Murphy? The next generation’s Niklas Hjalmarsson? The next generation’s stopper, the shutdown guy, the guy who’ll eat a puck to save a goal, then get up and do it again.
Is it Alex Vlasic? The oldest member of the Blackhawks’ current defensive corps and longest-tenured player on the team (at the ripe old age of 24) is big, long and largely defensive-minded. But he was running the power play as recently as last season. His own idealized version of himself is more of a two-way player, not a one-way stopper. He can skate and move the puck, and he wants to do so. But sure, maybe it’s him.
Is it Louis Crevier? The not-so-gentle giant is the most defensive of the Blackhawks’ defensemen. He’s got one of the five hardest shots in the league and isn’t afraid to use it, but he always thinks defense first. Blashill clearly loves the guy. But he’s a seventh-round pick, and his underlying numbers aren’t the prettiest. With his physical gifts, his ceiling is high — at 6-foot-8, it needs to be — but it could take years for him to reach it, if he ever does. It might be him.
Is it Artyom Levshunov? The 20-year-old is a physical freak, a block of granite who possesses rare strength for someone his age. But if Levshunov, who was taken second in the 2024 draft when Ivan Demidov was on the board, maxes out as a shutdown defender, a matchup guy, it will be an irrefutable failure for the Blackhawks’ front office. There are top-pairing blueliners who are also shutdown defenders — think Dallas’ Miro Heiskanen, for example — but they are exceedingly rare. For the Blackhawks to get where they want to go, Levshunov needs to be stalking the offensive blue line, bull-rushing opponents, diving to the net and wreaking havoc in the opponents’ end, not sitting back as a safety net. It shouldn’t be him.
Sam Rinzel is a power-play quarterback, perhaps the Blackhawks’ best hope for a top-pairing offensive force. Wyatt Kaiser is a Swiss Army knife, a puck-mover, an ideal second-pairing guy who can do a little of everything. Ethan Del Mastro has the physicality but is still trying to prove himself as an everyday NHLer. Kevin Korchinski remains an enigma, but if he does become the star the Blackhawks hoped he’d be when they picked him seventh in 2022, it will be because of his offense, not his defense.
Is it someone who’s not even on the roster yet? There’s not much room for another veteran to replace Murphy, but the top of the draft is very defense-heavy after the top two forwards. Though again, the kind of defensemen who go in the top 10 typically are taken for their glamorous offense, not their unglamorous defense.
It might not be the Blackhawks’ most pressing question, but every great team has a go-to shutdown defenseman. And Chicago doesn’t have one anymore. Not yet, at least.
“I don’t know if I’m someone that (you) worry about to be replaced,” Murphy said in typical self-deprecating fashion. “They have plenty of good defensemen. Even on the right side, you got a guy like Louis Crevier, he’s a good defensive guy that stepped into a big role this year. And then you have Arty Levshunov, who’s come in as a young player and proved his way to the NHL. They have plenty of players that will step up and play a lot of minutes and have successful careers there. That’s part of the business — there’s guys that move on over time (and) good young players come in and replace a lot of those roles.”
Blashill isn’t ready to anoint a successor. He wants the players to do it for him.
“I’m going to let our guys kind of dictate what their ceilings are themselves through their play,” he said. “So I don’t want to say, well, this guy’s going to be in that role, or this guy’s going to be in that role, because until they grab it and do it consistently, that’s hard to say. Murph certainly did that for a long time with us. I assume he’s going to do that throughout the rest of the year (in Edmonton), as well. … We’ll let guys grab those roles as we go through it and see what they do.”
Blashill singled out Crevier (noting that he’s first over the boards now on the penalty kill, and sees his share of five-on-six time late in close games) and Levshunov (noting how “crazy, crazy strong” he is). But for now, the defensive onus is spread among all three pairings. Against Edmonton, Vlasic and Crevier got the bulk of the minutes against Connor McDavid, with Chicago earning nearly 54 percent of the expected goals. For now, especially with Levshunov done for the season with a fractured hand, that’s the Blackhawks’ nominal top pairing, first in line rushes before the game and first in minutes during the game. But over time, the towering tandem could become a true shutdown pairing.
They’re not there yet. But neither are the Blackhawks as a whole. The group that is on the ice now is pretty much the group that’ll be on the ice next season, and potentially for many years after that, with a few young reinforcements on the way. The defensemen are adjusting to life without Murphy, their defensive rock. The forwards are adjusting to life without Jason Dickinson, their defensive leader, also traded to Edmonton. The remaining Blackhawks are learning to play together, learning to win together, learning to lose together, learning to play with the seriousness and competitiveness that Murphy showed through all those long lost seasons.
Nobody’s looking at the gaping holes in the lineup and thinking, I need to become the next Connor Murphy, or the next Jason Dickinson. But those difficult, unsexy and critically important defensive roles are there for the taking. It’s just a matter of who wants it and who’s willing to do it.
“I don’t think I want anybody to want to be me, or want to be Murph,” Dickinson said. “They’ve got some great players over there that are themselves, and have the ability to do what I do and then some. … I don’t think I’d want anybody to aspire to be me, as much as I love what I do. I think there’s some guys over there that have a lot more in their game than me, and I think they should realize that and really aspire to be better than what I am.”