Should the Oilers trade for Ryan Murphy?

The Oilers have been in a never-ending search for a right-shot, puck-moving, powerplay quarterbacking defenceman for sometime. Now, it appears there could be one on the trading block.

[Ryan Murphy] doesn’t seem to be a fit for Hurricanes head coach Bill Peters. Murphy’s name has been used as trade bait for months, but now the Canes are actively shopping him. With a salary of $750,000 this year and $825,000 next season, the 23-year-old, right-shot defenceman will likely be on the move. The Hurricanes were among the clubs most interested in Anaheim’s Cam Fowler before Hampus Lindholm signed his extension, so clearly Carolina is hoping to upgrade its blueline and would include Murphy as part of a deal. Transcript, source.

The Hurricanes currently have an abuncance of right-shot defencemen on the roster, with four players manning the back end. Justin Faulk, Brett Pesce, Matt Tennyson and Ryan Murphy are those four players. At nearly every level of hockey he played, Murphy was a high-scoring defenceman.

After Carolina selected him 12th overall in 2011, his junior offensive totals fell in consecutive seasons. None the less, he hit a point-per-game pace as an AHL rookie, and has scored 0.79 points-per-AHL game.

During his NHL tenure, he has put up only 36 points in 128 games which is considerably less than he has put up at other levels. It should be noted that he saw success with Andrej Sekera in limited time in Carolina.

At worst, Murphy is a reclamation project that has some big potential. In the future, I think Murphy could be a solid addition as a 4/5 defenceman. Carolina has long had issues scoring, so I would imagine they would be looking for a top-nine winger with some point production in return.

This is pure speculation, but I wonder if there could be a market for Benoit Pouliot in Carolina. He has a reasonable cap hit moving forward and has been a strong secondary scorer. I have a tough time mentioning him because the Oilers have been struggling to find that secondary scoring for a while, but what else would the Oilers have to offer that would entice the Hurricanes?