Connor Murphy

As a young player, there gave me more opportunity and more stability, I guess, contract-wise.

I've been fortunate to have that earlier in my career, but toward getting into my 30s, definitely the number one priority has been being a fit and being on a team that can win and can do some damage.

So just to try to be wanted on any team like this I think is really huge and I'm grateful for.

And I would love to see it work out here.

And I'm focusing obviously on the present, but you know that you're expiring at some point and you hope that something can work out.

Yeah, it's definitely, I'd say the biggest thing, just seeing my dad growing up when he coached, specifically when he played, I was pretty young.

And then when I got into my prime years of really trying to develop and really understanding how important it was and trying to learn the nuances of the game, he was coaching it every day.

He's at the Kitchen Island with a video, his laptop cutting clips.

And he'd call me over and show me Nick Lidstrom making plays and show me his D and pre-scouts and show me a little bit of a taste of what some NHL video looks like and habits.

So I was really fortunate and I think that was a big advantage to have to learn little details that you don't get from a lot of the development from a young age.

So I had that and then as I got older and turned pro, he actually still guided me some phone calls that kind of helped me through some of the usual growing pains.

And then I had older defensemen in Arizona at the time.

We had Derek Morris and Keith Handles, Abinik Mahalik.

And Ekman Larson was a younger player that was still a good friend to have.

And then Shane Doan was the captain.

So to have those older guys specifically, I remember day one, they grabbed me on a practice drill and showed me how to hit and pin a guy on the boards and how to make stick plays.

And it's cool.

Stuff like that I thought was just the way the NHL was.

And then as I got older, I realized that that just took special leadership out of them to...

take attention to give to a young player and teach them little details and make them feel like they're being understood and being taught and brought up.