dealt from the Blackhawks to the Oilers<\/a> ahead of the trade deadline last month. \u201cSince I\u2019ve been here, the games have been really meaningful, each one, for the standings. \u2026\u00a0Every day, I\u2019ve 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.\u201d<\/p>\nBut 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\u2019 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\u2019s most dangerous players? Murphy was on the ice. He was the quintessential defensive defenseman, and it was that seriousness of purpose \u2014 even in the face of all that losing \u2014 that made him so steady, so valuable. It didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
Whom does Jeff Blashill turn to now? Who\u2019s the next generation\u2019s Murphy? The next generation\u2019s Niklas Hjalmarsson? The next generation\u2019s stopper, the shutdown guy, the guy who\u2019ll eat a puck to save a goal, then get up and do it again.<\/p>\n
Is it Alex Vlasic? The oldest member of the Blackhawks\u2019 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\u2019s him.<\/p>\n
Is it Louis Crevier? The not-so-gentle giant is the most defensive of the Blackhawks\u2019 defensemen. He\u2019s got one of the five hardest shots in the league and isn\u2019t afraid to use it, but he always thinks defense first. Blashill clearly loves the guy. But he\u2019s a seventh-round pick, and his underlying numbers aren\u2019t the prettiest. With his physical gifts, his ceiling is high \u2014 at 6-foot-8, it needs to be \u2014\u00a0but it could take years for him to reach it, if he ever does. It might be him.<\/p>\n
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\u2019 front office. There are top-pairing blueliners who are also shutdown defenders \u2014 think Dallas\u2019 Miro Heiskanen, for example \u2014\u00a0but 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\u2019 end, not sitting back as a safety net. It shouldn\u2019t be him.<\/p>\n
Sam Rinzel is a power-play quarterback, perhaps the Blackhawks\u2019 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\u2019d be when they picked him seventh in 2022, it will be because of his offense, not his defense.<\/p>\n
Is it someone who\u2019s not even on the roster yet? There\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
It might not be the Blackhawks\u2019 most pressing question, but every great team has a go-to shutdown defenseman. And Chicago doesn\u2019t have one anymore. Not yet, at least.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019m someone that (you) worry about to be replaced,\u201d Murphy said in typical self-deprecating fashion. \u201cThey have plenty of good defensemen. Even on the right side, you got a guy like Louis Crevier, he\u2019s a good defensive guy that stepped into a big role this year. And then you have Arty Levshunov, who\u2019s 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\u2019s part of the business \u2014\u00a0there\u2019s guys that move on over time (and) good young players come in and replace a lot of those roles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blashill isn\u2019t ready to anoint a successor. He wants the players to do it for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to let our guys kind of dictate what their ceilings are themselves through their play,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I don\u2019t want to say, well, this guy\u2019s going to be in that role, or this guy\u2019s going to be in that role, because until they grab it and do it consistently, that\u2019s hard to say. Murph certainly did that for a long time with us. I assume he\u2019s going to do that throughout the rest of the year (in Edmonton), as well. \u2026\u00a0We\u2019ll let guys grab those roles as we go through it and see what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blashill singled out Crevier (noting that he\u2019s 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 \u201ccrazy, crazy strong\u201d 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\u2019s the Blackhawks\u2019 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.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re 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\u2019ll 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.<\/p>\n
Nobody\u2019s 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\u2019s just a matter of who wants it and who\u2019s willing to do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I want anybody to want to be me, or want to be Murph,\u201d Dickinson said. \u201cThey\u2019ve got some great players over there that are themselves, and have the ability to do what I do and then some. \u2026 I don\u2019t think I\u2019d want anybody to aspire to be me, as much as I love what I do.\u00a0I think there\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON \u2014 Connor Murphy never played a truly meaningful regular-season game during his nine seasons in Chicago. A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5115],"tags":[521,37,96,5263,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-540106","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-blackhawks","8":"tag-blackhawks","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-blackhawks","11":"tag-chicagoblackhawks","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116346210198419849","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Edmonton](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/murphy-scaled.jpg\")
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