Well, the fancystats for Murray say this: when he's on the ice 5-on-5, the Habs bleed shots against, they bleed chances against, and they do little to nothing good offensively.
He hits hard, but the available data suggests that he's not good at actual defense. Now two games is an extremely small sample, but it's been a while since I've seen a statline that looked quite this dismal. In his defense, the Habs' current fourth line is also abysmal so he might not be getting any help there then.
Still, he whole "bleeds scoring chances" isn't exactly the most desirable characteristic for a defensive defenseman. And needless to say his offensive contribution is practically nil. Perhaps this is one of the reason he only played 26:21 over his two games, which is a single slightly busy game for Subban or Markov.
So far, the data makes him look like he's exactly as advertised: a Komisarek type, impressive hitter, but ineffective defender. And the numbers certainly don't challenge my initial assessment that he's not a NHL player.
It's very important not to confuse hitting with defense. Hitting is not bad, it can often be a very useful tool for defense (see: Emelin, Alexei), but conversely a guy who hits a lot is not necessarily an effective defender.
This is exactly where fancystats are useful: to help us look past the eye-popping hits that stick to the mind, and look at whether a guy's actually being effective where it matters. And to me, a defensive defenseman's role is to prevent goals against, which is best done by preventing scoring chances.
Hopefully Emelin gets healthy soon and the Habs can ice a defenseman who is a hard hitter and effective.
