His skating should allow him to flourish is the defensive scheme they are running. The key is for him to make a quick read with confidence and use his skating, which is exceptional, to gap-up and force a dump-in or turn-over. Conversely, if his partner forces a dump-in, his skating should allow him more time/space when he retrieves...and his zone-exit passing is pretty good.
He is still a risk/concern, but I hate for the team to sell at this point. It's sort of like a company with a stock at $100 that is rumored to be investigated by the feds for fraud. If the company is fraudulent, the stock is worth zero...the market typically will overreact and price the stock below $50. I'd much rather buy those equities with currency (draft pick) than with our own under-valued equity.
Ryan Murphy has a calendar problem that likely won't be solved in the next 12 months. He is waiver eligible and would easily be lost to waivers if placed on them. Next summer with expansion likely he easily gets plucked off of either our roster or the Checkers roster. There's simply "no room at the Inn".
Agree with that POV. To Murphy's potential benefit is BP's strong preference to skate rather than scale pucks into the offensive zone, especially gaining entry on the PP, and nobody is close to Murphy in doing that. I think he can gain his confidence on the PP and that will translate eventually into 5on5 play.
I would argue that all three of Slavin, Pesce, and especially Hanifin are equal to and/or superior to Murphy in offensive zone entries. All three demonstrated better decision-making on those entries and at least equivalent skill. I agree that Murphy's main issue is confidence which manifests itself in seemingly poor or slow decision-making. He was confident in juniors and he lost that against the higher level of competition in the NHL.
If Francis has to put Murphy on waivers, then he's compounding the mistake of not trading him.
100% exactly this.....Besides, which of Faulk, Hainsey, Wisniewski, Hanifin, Slavin, or Pesce do you sit so that Murphy can play and get his confidence up? I also think he's not a lost cause, just a lost cause here. For the most part, he actually did make noticeable strides after going down to the minors and then returning. More NHL ice time where he can make a mistake and learn from it will still be required with Ryan. The rewards for that patience could pay off beautifully, but I doubt that happens here.
So our only real option is to trade him as soon as we can. The closer it gets to training camp, the lower his value is. You package him with a pick to try and get a forward in a similar boat, period.