Brett Murray is the talk of the town after a strong showing in the Prospects Challenge over the weekend. His performance in those two games put him in a good spot heading into the start of training camp.

The Buffalo Sabres selected Murray in the fourth round of the 2016 NHL Draft. His path to this point has been a rocky one. After two down years at Penn State University, Murray returned to the Youngstown Phantoms of the USHL. He put up great numbers in his D+3 season but you had to take that with a grain of salt because he was an overager in that league.

The past two years he has played in the AHL with the Rochester Amerks. Murray has developed from an afterthought in the Sabres system to a player that legitimately has a chance to be a bottom-six forward in the NHL.

Development

His performance as a 23-year-old in a prospects tournament shouldn’t be the thing that gets fans excited. He should have dominated that tournament with his size and experience. It’s what has led up this point is what the focus should be on. Murray deserves credit for putting in the work to get himself to this point.

There has been some improvement in his skating from year one to year two with the Amerks. This is still an area that I have some concern at the NHL level. There are going to be times that his footspeed puts him in bad spots or he’ll have trouble keeping up with the pace in transition. Having said that, it doesn’t mean he can’t be an effective player. Putting himself in the proper spots positionally will allow him to mitage some of the shortcomings with his speed.

What I think helps Murray is that he’s aware of what his strengths and weaknesses are. He realized that he’s at his best on the forecheck and in front of the net. I noticed watching Amerks games last season that he understood how to create space for himself around the net with size and by continuously moving. The clip below is one example of what I’m talking about. He drifts off to the side of the crease giving himself space away from the defender and giving his teammate an outlet.

A 2nd PP goal for Brett Murray! Pass from Ruotsalainen and the Amerks are up 3-1. pic.twitter.com/KPeDl9Qs78

— LGA585 (@LGA585) April 3, 2021

Murray was one of the top players on the Amerks last season and it earned him a two-game look with the Sabres at the end of the season. As a team the Amerks often found themselves on the poor end of shot share and quality numbers. Murray was one of the few exceptions on that team was a player in the games that I tracked last season.

You’ll see above that he was one of only four players that were on the ice when the team didn’t give up a ton against and was able to create quality offensive opportunities. Murray was also one of the best players on the team in individually creating offense at 5 on 5. You’ll see below in his primary shot contributions that he was again one of the top players on the team.

His shot attempts around the net drove a lot of the success, but he improved on his primary shot assists per game over last year. That’s a sign to me that he’s not a one trick pony around the net. He has the ability to use his teammates and set up shooting chances.

Role with the Sabres

If Murray makes the team out of training camp it’s going to be in a fourth line role and someone that can make an impact on the power play. The Sabres don’t have a lot of players on their roster that have some of the tools that Murray possess. Tage Thompson has size, but we’ve seen him be unable to properly utilize that advantage for a few years now. That’s not the case with Murray. He knows how to use his 6’4″ and 216 pound frame to his advantage.

I went back and watched his two games in the NHL last season and you could already see some areas that he made an impact on the team in limited playing time. Murray gave us a small glimpse of the type of role he could fill in the NHL.

As I mentioned, the Sabres don’t have a lot of players that can win puck battles along the walls and that’s one such area that Murray excels. He can get in on defenders to pin them against the wall and create loose pucks for his teammates to gain possession if proper support comes. In the clip below you’ll see this very thing occur.

Murray gets in on the Penguins defender and generates a loose puck. Drake Caggiula comes in as a support and Murray is eventually able to get the puck back to the blue line. The eventual result is a goal for Caggiula, but the board work isn’t all that Murray does on this play. After getting the puck back he heads to the net and occupys a defender, which then opens the middle of the ice for Caggiula.

This next clip is another example of his forechecking ability. He causes a turnover and gets a high quality shooting opportunity.

In this last one you can once again see his ability to get to the net. He comes off the bench and immediately drives to the goaltender and nearly scores off a pass from Jacob Bryson. Then he establishes himself in front of the goal and moves around the crease looking to create some open space for a scoring opportunity if the puck comes to him.

It’ll be interesting to see if Murray can carry the strong stat into training camp. We know that the Sabres are looking to give young players an opportunity. Therefore it’ll be up to him to continue to play his game and earn one of the final roster spots. His ability to play on the power play may give him an advantage over some other that he’ll be competing with.

Photo Credit: Rochester Amerks/Facebook