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As if the fun of the Viktor Stalberg trade wasn’t enough, Craig Custance of ESPN is reporting that the Hurricanes are listening to offers for Ryan Murphy before the 2017 NHL trade deadline tomorrow.
CAR also getting calls on 23-year-old defensemen Ryan Murphy, signed through next year. Imagine the preference would be young forward back.
— Craig Custance (@CraigCustance) February 28, 2017
Murphy seems to be an obvious candidate to move, especially given what the Hurricanes would be looking to receive, although doing so would leave the Canes in a bind with regard to the expansion draft. Murphy is 22 games short of playing the required number of games to meet the Canes’ defenseman exposure requirements for the expansion draft, meaning that if he stayed on the Canes’ roster for the rest of the season and played every game, he would reach the magic number of 70 games over the past two seasons with two games to spare.
Trading Murphy would necessitate another move: either acquiring a defenseman signed through next season with the intention of exposing that player to selection by the Vegas Golden Knights, or extending the contract of either Klas Dahlbeck or Matt Tennyson to make them eligible for exposure.
Cory Lavalette of North State Journal thinks that the Penguins could be a fit, which would reunite Murphy with the general manager who drafted him, Jim Rutherford.
Was discussing this earlier with @IanAltenbaugh … could the Pens be a fit? https://t.co/HbwPDNmq6W
— Cory Lavalette (@corylav) February 28, 2017
@corylav the Pens would probably willingly offer up Josh Archibald and maybe a mid-late round pick. Archived a young solid bottom six guy
— Ian Altenbaugh (@IanAltenbaugh) February 28, 2017
Stay tuned. As we’ve learned today, these things can move quickly.