Can someone give me a current scouting take on Connor Murphy?
I get it, he's from Columbus, but that's not my interest here.
I assume every veteran in Chicago is available, but I'm not sure what it would cost to acquire him. On paper this seems like a big minute eating RD who could play on the top line with ZW until Jiricek is ready to take on that type of role. At that you point you move him down to the 2nd pair and he'd make a nice line mate for a young Mateychuk. Murphy is signed for 3 more years at $4.4m.
imo RHD isn't necessarily a need in terms of adding a guy, but could be an area where they look to improve upon what they already have. they have five bodies there that will be NHL-ready next year.
LD is a much bigger concern, both on the second and third pairs behind werenski.
jiricek may not be 'ready' to be a #1 RHD, but he's far more capable of handling that than peeke, has more upside and less injury concern than blankenburg, and is a better fit next to werenski than boqvist is.
in other words, i think they should look to find a partner for
boqvist on the second pair before looking to find one for werenski. although my personal favorite theoretical target (weegar) is a righty who usually plays on the left, so he could fit either of those spots in theory.
that said, if they want to find a RHD to play with werenski, you'd probably need to move at least one of peeke/boqvist (if not both) and you'd
still need to find a second pair LHD who could play with jiricek.