Dev Camp Diary: Developing Defense

Jeff Tambellini, Director of Player Development, describes Cory as “the defense expert, almost a defense whisperer.” Murphy has come to the development side of hockey after, as Tambellini describes, a career as “an outstanding player, a really smart, intelligent, competitive player who transitioned that right into coaching overseas and has now done an amazing job with our defense prospects.” Many Kraken prospects point to improvements in their games as a result of working with Murphy. As he helps run all aspects of Dev Camp, he shares the highlights, the purpose, and what he hopes Kraken prospects take away from the week in Seattle.

When I think about what I try to do as a development coach, I think about how I was lucky to play for a long time and in a lot of different situations on both sides of the pond. Along the way, I picked up a lot of things. I've had a lot of coaches in the past, and I’ve tried to take from all of them what I liked as a player and try to use that with our prospects. I also was able to add a coaching perspective through five years behind the bench.

With the Kraken, I bring all of that together which ultimately is just me asking myself ‘how can I share my lessons?’ ‘How can I be helpful?’ That's the way I approach every day is ‘how can I help these kids get to be in the NHL as fast as they can and stay there when they get there?’ I just I love to find anything that can help them do that. It's been really, really fun with this job.

But there’s a trick to that, too. I realized that not everyone is like me, and things that I liked in a coach, maybe some players, it doesn't work for them. So that's a big part of my job is finding out exactly what these guys need from me and how they'd like to get it. Some guys want to be doing a ton of video and calls and watching film. Some guys like to do it a little bit less. It’s all about figuring that out and really getting to know our prospects as people first and what motivates them and how I can help them.

Through most of our player’s seasons, I get to where they play to see them live when I can. A lot of our defensive prospects have played out west this year – it can change every season - but if I can’t see every game in person, I watch them on film. And that helps me know what to work on with them. I enjoy that process, but it’s also what makes Dev Camp so special for me.

It's amazing for us to get all our prospects in-house and get to see them on the ice. For us, it's all about the relationships with them and it's a really important time for them to come and get in the building, to see the facilities, but also for us to continue to build those relationships. Like I said, I do a lot of work via video because our players are all over the place, so to be able to get here and get on the ice with them and take that relationship to the level where we're on the ice and do some stuff with them out there? It's a big thing for our department.

Ultimately that’s my favorite part, (even though I did love going to a Mariners game, I’m a big baseball fan), just getting all our prospects here and watching them grow and seeing especially from one year to the next the development of the kids that come in as drafted players and now they're a year older…just seeing that development and watching what they can do now, that’s been really fun.

At the end of the day, I hope these players take away first and foremost just an appreciation of how lucky they are to be part of this organization. They walk in, they see the facilities, they see what it's like, they get a taste of what it's like to have this as your job every single day. Hopefully they all appreciate that and hopefully they all leave with just a little more motivation to make sure that this is where they end up.

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