Canucks Reportedly Interested in Douglas Murray, For Some Reason

I made a similar sour puss face when I heard the news; (Image via Tumblr)

Yesterday, news broke that Chris Tanev was at a standstill in his contract negotiations with the Canucks, and that he was receiving interest from teams in both the KHL and Swiss Elite League. Today, Jim Jamieson of The Province reported that the team has been "kicking the tires on huge free agent defenseman Douglas Murray".

Read on for more about why Douglas Murray is not the solution.

I find it awfully ironic that a day after the report of Chris Tanev – a darling of the analytical community, who relies on playing a smart positional game and not getting burned too often – potentially moving to a different league surfaces, the suggestion that his polar opposite would take his place arises.

At this stage of his career, Murray, essentially a 33-year old pylon, is not a good hockey player. Of course he hits big, occasionally drops the gloves, and plays a mean game, so old school media types seem to be infatuated with him. You’ve probably heard that he’s a "gamer", I’d bet.

All of those things somehow make people overlook the fact that he has been one of the worst possession players in the league for a few years now. The opposition wants him on the ice as much as possible, because they probably feel like their chances of doing damage are substantially enhanced. If you’d like to learn more about Murray as a player, please feel free to read this take from the Sharks blog Fear the Fin, which fully encapsulated all of my thoughts on him.

Somehow, the Sharks were able to acquire two 2nd-round draft picks from the Penguins in exchange for him last March. It kind of still blows my mind that they were able to get that haul, but then again, Doug Wilson is fantastic at his job and sometimes GMs around the league make rushed, poor decisions around the deadline.

I don’t know what kind of contract he’d fetch, but considering he’s coming off of a deal which saw him make $2.5 million for four consecutive seasons, I can’t really see him agreeing to play for peanuts. For the same amount of money, I’d much rather see the team bring back Andrew Alberts to bridge the gap on the third pairing. 

I guess if you’re really reaching for reasons to get excited about the idea of Murray as a Canuck, there’s always the fact that his nickname is "Crankshaft". That’s pretty cool. He also dated Elin Nordegren for a while. That’s all I’ve got. Let’s hope that nothing comes of this report.