Blackhawks Activate Connor Murphy Off IR

Murphy, 26, has been dealing with a nagging groin injury but appears to be fully recovered.

The Chicago Blackhawks announced on Thursday afternoon that they activated defenseman Connor Murphy off injured reserve. Murphy was forced to miss the Blackhawks season opener in Prague due to a minor groin injury. He'll be in the lineup Thursday night against a San Jose Sharks squad that is desperate for a win.

Murphy is coming off quite an impressive 2018-19 campaign. Although he played in just 52 games, he was among the Blackhawks leaders in several categories. The right-handed defenseman was second on the team in hits, plus-minus, and defensive point shares (an estimate of the number of points contributed by a player due to his defense). Only Duncan Keith (3.8 DPS) had a higher defensive point share than Murphy (2.4 DPS), but Keith played in 30 more games. The 6-foot-4, 212-pound Murphy was arguably the best defender for the Blackhawks last year. He'll likely be relied on even more this season as Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook aren't getting any younger.

It appears that the Blackhawks will have Murphy starting the game on the third pairing with Slater Koekkoek. Calvin de Haan will not be in the lineup once again as his groin doesn't seem to be 100 percent healthy yet. One thing to keep an eye on is the Blackhawks top defensive pairing of Duncan Keith and Erik Gustafsson. Both players struggled in the season opener vs. Philadelphia, and head coach Jeremy Colliton was vocal about Gustafsson in particular.

"He can be good defensively," Colliton stated to the media. "He just has to commit to it. When he's engaged and keeping his shifts shorter, it's much easier for him to play high level away from the puck, and that's what we expect."

It will be interesting to see if Colliton sticks with the Keith-Gustafsson duo if they struggle once again Thursday night. Murphy, now remarkably coming into his seventh professional season, is a strong candidate to play on the right side of future Hall-of-Fame defenseman Duncan Keith. Of course, Murphy could also be paired with Calvin de Haan once he's healthy to form one hell of a shutdown pairing.

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