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Connor Murphy stabilized the second pair: Oilers 2025-26 player review
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Photo credit: © David Gonzales-Imagn Images
Lane Golden
May 19, 2026, 09:00 EDTUpdated: May 18, 2026, 12:52 EDT
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Welcome to Oilersnation’s annual player review series, where we dive into the Edmonton Oilers season player by player. We’ll look back at the season that was, what kind of impact each player had, and what we could see from them next season. You can read about the analytics behind my analysis here.
The Edmonton Oilers have had a second-pair right-shot defenceman on their shopping list for what feels like an eternity. Those duties used to belong to Cody Ceci, who paired with Darnell Nurse for several years, but after they fell flat in consecutive playoff runs, the Oilers traded Ceci in the summer of 2024.
Since then, they’ve cycled through Troy Stecher, Ty Emberson, Alec Regula, and Jake Walman as potential replacements at 2RD. None of them stuck, and it became clear that they needed help from outside the organization.
Enter Connor Murphy. The Oilers acquired the 6-foot-4, stay-at-home defenceman from the Chicago Blackhawks ahead of this season’s trade deadline in exchange for a second-round pick as a potential answer to their second pair troubles.
The coaching staff briefly experimented with Walman and Murphy together, but ultimately slotted him in next to Nurse. The results for the new duo were encouraging. In 289 minutes together, they had a 57.1 per cent goal share and 50.2 per cent expected goal share.
PDO luck boosted their results, but they still won the expected goals battle, and Murphy was the only defensive partner to play significant minutes next to Nurse this season and outscore the opposition. Furthermore, they did an excellent job defensively, holding their opponents to 2.3 expected goals per hour and 1.2 actual goals per hour. Murphy was the most stabilizing force on the second pair all season.
He has a combination of size, physicality, and defensive awareness that the Oilers’ leaky defensive core desperately needed. His net-front defence is particularly impressive, as shown in his HockeyViz heat maps, which highlight his excellent shot-attempt prevention in the inner slot.
As a fixture on the Blackhawks’ No.1-ranked penalty kill, Murphy played an integral role on the Oilers’ PK, ranking first in short-handed time on ice per game. He finished the regular season with the lowest goals against per hour at four-on-five among Oilers defencemen, helping lead a brief penalty kill surge that died off in the postseason.
While Murphy contributed very little offensively, the Oilers got full value for their second-round pick, given how well he reduced goals against while propping up a struggling second-pair, and penalty kill.
Murphy becomes an unrestricted free agent this summer, leaving the Oilers with a crucial decision. At 33 years old, Stan Bowman will need to exercise caution with the term on any contract offer he makes. Still, with the absence of many other options in free agency and a decent sample of positive results in Edmonton, the Oilers would be wise to try to re-sign him on July 1.

Other player reviews…

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