Is Connor Murphy having a quietly good season for the Chicago Blackhawks?

After a rocky start with the Chicago Blackhawks last season and an injury that sidelined him for three months, has Connor Murphy quietly emerged as a top defender in a struggling group of blueliners?

*all statistics are from Natural Stat Trick and Hockey Reference*

As everyone already knows, the Chicago Blackhawks aren’t very good when it comes to defense. The core of the blueliners has aged and been traded away in hopes of acquiring players who are younger, faster, and cost-controlled.

Despite having his struggles so far throughout his career with the ‘Hawks, Connor Murphy may have solidified himself as a reliable defender in a struggling group. That may not say much considering how awful the defense has actually been this season, but Murphy’s improvements are visible beyond the statistics.

Murphy was shipped to Chicago in 2017 with a prospect in the Niklas Hjalmarsson trade that nearly everyone despised at the time. Many fans of the Blackhawks had no idea what the team received in that deal and were mostly frustrated coming off a first-round exit in the playoffs and dealing Artemi Panarin to Columbus to take Brandon Saad back.

During his time with the Arizona Coyotes, Connor Murphy put up 13 goals and 36 assists for 49 points in 258 games. Throughout some brutal years where the team never made the playoffs, he had a 46.0 Corsi-for percentage and averaged around 19 minutes of time-on-ice per game.

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In his first season with the Chicago Blackhawks, the 24-year-old struggled to find consistent ice time and seemed to not live up to the expectations that he would immediately step into the role Hjalmarsson previously held. He did play in 76 games and tallied 14 points, just three below his career high of 17 he hit in both 2015-2016 and 2016-2017. He blocked 101 shots, the lowest total of his career for a season where he played more than 50 games. Additionally, he also had the best possession statistics (53.5% Corsi-for and 52.7% Fenwick-for) among defenders who played more than 50 games with the Blackhawks. Both of those statistics were career-bests for Murphy.

So maybe Joel Quenneville had just been hard on the new guy last season. We all knew he was definitely not a fan of what general manager Stan Bowman pulled on draft day in 2017. He also had a pretty consistent track record of not giving players equal opportunity (i.e. Michal Kempny and Vinnie Hinostroza) and they’ve now found success elsewhere.

Unfortunately for Murphy, he had a rough start to the 2018-2019, much like the rest of the team, thanks to a back injury that sidelined him from training camp through the first two months. But since the start of his season on December 9, Connor Murphy has been one of the least noticeable defensemen on the ice for the Chicago Blackhawks and Jeremy Colliton has relied on him to be a top defender many times.

Believe it or not, that’s a very good thing. We call out guys like Erik Gustafsson and Gustav Forsling on the regular for their defensive errors, and rightly so. On a team that is so bad at keeping the puck out of their own net and giving up high-danger chances left and right, players can’t be making huge errors such as blatant giveaways and turnovers in their own zone.

It’s a rare occurrence for Murphy to do such a thing. I don’t have all the game footage from this season, but I can’t remember the last time he made a poor play that led to a goal.

Obviously, something should be said about how many chances he’s allowed when he’s on the ice. At 5-on-5, Murphy has a 46.68 Corsi-for percentage (CF-CA is 604-690), 44.77% scoring chances for, and 38.79% high-danger scoring chances for.