Pens of the Past - Larry Murphy

by FrankD on Jul 14, 2008 7:00 AM EDT in Pens of the Past

The legendary "Murph", just one of the nicknames Larry Murphy had assigned to him throughout his 21-year-career, is the subject of this week's Pens of the Past.

Larry_murphy_medium

Image found on Legendsofhockey.net

Name	GP	G	A	PTS	PIM
Larry Murphy	1615	287	929	1216	1084

When you're second on the all-time list of NHL defenseman for most post-season games played, you know you've been doing something right. Surpassed only by the Devils' Scott Stevens (who played an extra season than Murph), Larry Murphy spanned his 21 seasons in the NHL out over six different teams. For the sake of this blog, his most memorable stay was in Pittsburgh, where Murphy helped take home two consecutive Cups.

Perhaps his current job as a Detroit Red Wings color commentator would seem a bit treacherous (even more so considering the outcome of this past season), but it seems rightly justified since he closed out the last five years of his career in Detroit.

But enough of that - onto his career.

No matter where he played, Murph was putting up the numbers. But it was when he was in Pittsburgh that number 55 was putting them up consistently (and exceedingly in the playoffs).

In his first season with Pittsburgh, during the Penguins first Cup win in 90/91, Murph tallied 23 points on the blue line (5-18) in the post-season. It would stand as his single greatest post-season performance throughout his entire career.

Most notably (for those who may remember) was the Mike Lange call of the "Murphy Dump." I distinctly remember hearing this as a kid and getting a sick and perverse chuckle out of it. Nowadays it poses as the ideal clear for a line change - shoot the puck in, yet still on goal, so as to switch up the lines and avert the icing call.

Most notably in Murph's career are his four Stanley Cup wins in the 90s. Two came with Pitt, while the other two came with Detroit. He's the only NHL player to have won four Cups in a decade, evidence alone for his 2004 Hall of Fame induction.

Next to Ulf Samuelsson (who we just may see later on in the Pens of the Past series), Murphy was one of my favorite Pittsburgh d-men.

Memories...stories...thoughts?

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Murphy played as long with the Wings as he did with the Penguins, and won as many cups in hockeytown as he did in Pittsburgh, so we have equal claim to the guy.

I know you’re looking for Penguin memories, but I have to share one from his time with the Red Wings….it was from the 1997 season, when the Wings won the cup for the first time in 42 years. With the previous year’s failure at the hands of the avalanche still fresh in our psyche, it was traumatizing to see the Blues, with Grant Fuhr making like he was a decade younger and still playing for the Oilers come in and steal game one at the Joe….and then, he had a shutout going for more than half of game 2, too…Wings tied it up either late in the 2nd or early third, and then with about 5 minutes left, Murph gets to a rebound, and flips it up and over Fuhr, and the rest as they say, was History.

That goal was something special, a sigh of relief for Wings fans, a lamp lighting that led the way to the cup, all that.

Murphy also seemed to get his fair share of shorthanded goals, I’m thinking that has to be part of of his legacy….

by ahtrap on Jul 14, 2008 1:42 PM EDT reply actions

In that playoff run he tied Paul Coffey (another former Pen/Wing for most shorthanded goals in the postseason with 2.

He was an intense D-man who was never afraid to charge the net. In a sense, that style was way before his time and is now really starting to break through in the new NHL. If you plucked a guy like Larry Murphy out of the 90s and dropped him into the Pens’ blue line today he’d make a killing.

FrankD from Pensburgh.com

by FrankD on Jul 14, 2008 7:37 PM EDT up reply actions