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Ryan Murray’s odd tale continues in Columbus

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Ryan Murray accepted the Columbus Blue Jackets’ qualifying offer today, so he’ll register a $2.825 million cap hit for 2018-19. It says a lot about his middling development that this counts as such a minor transaction, and arguably a poor value.

Murray would have had to be a pretty sensational presence for his on-ice play to be more interesting than his draft-day backstory. There’s still time - albeit not much - for him to change that narrative, but as of today, Murray’s “What if?” scenarios bring more intrigue than his potential to boost the Columbus Blue Jackets.

It’s not just that Murray, 24, was the second pick of the 2012 NHL Draft.

Heck, it’s not just that the top of that 2012 NHL Draft was remarkably star-crossed.*

No, the most interesting thing is what could have happened.

To jog your memory, in pursuing the chance to select Murray, then-Islanders GM Garth Snow channeled Mike Ditka mortgaging basically an entire Saints draft year to land Ricky Williams. As Elliotte Friedman noted for a CBC piece that’s especially interesting to read with hindsight, the offer to move up - most likely for Murray - was as such:

Islanders sought: Second pick, which would have been Murray.

Blue Jackets would have received: Fourth pick (Islanders selected Griffin Reinhart), plus picks 34, 65, 103, 125, 155 and 185.

Wild stuff, right? As it turns out, the Islanders ended up selecting two players in 2012 who’ve seen NHL action so far: Reinhart, and Adam Pelech, who they chose in the third round (65th overall).

Of course, the most significant takeaway for the Islanders came from trading Reinhart for the picks that became Mathew Barzal and Anthony Beauvillier, which is another post (if not a “30 for 30") for another day.

The Blue Jackets still ended up enjoying a better draft than the Islanders, nabbing intriguing goalie Joonas Korpisalo (third round, 62nd pick) and solid winger Josh Anderson (fourth round, 95th pick). All things considered, they might have found another gem if they landed that bucket of picks from Snow.

Murray’s also a “What if?” question because his early career was derailed by injuries, and we’ll never know how his development might have turned out if he was healthier.

But, as is, the 24-year-old’s a pretty marginal NHL defenseman. His best years were his rookie campaign (21 points in 66 games in 2013-14) and 2015-16, when he scored a career-high 25 points and logged an average of 22:51 TOI.

During the past two seasons, he’s been just under 18-and-a-half minutes per game, scoring 11 and 12 points. His possession stats were pretty appalling in 2016-17 and quite bad last season.

Murray’s draft pedigree probably makes him lucky to accept Columbus’ qualifying offer of blank, but it’s not all bad. It’s likely that he’ll bring similar value to the Blue Jackets as they may have received from Jack Johnson, judging from metrics such as CJ Turturo’s comparison tool (which uses Corey Sznajder’s painstaking entry/exit data).

Comparison Dashboard

Not exactly ... inspiring.

That said, it’s not outrageous to imagine Murray being worth another shot. The one-year term limits the risk, and while he’s not likely to drop jaws with his skills, his puck-moving profile at least falls in line with what works best in the modern NHL.

Far from spectacular stuff, but hey, the guy drafted before him will be plying his trade in the KHL next season, so it could be worse.

* - To review:

1. Nail Yakupov has, uh, not been too great.

2. Ryan Murray - turns out he wasn’t worth a whole draft, even a bad one?

3. Alex Galchenyuk - a good player who was seemingly condemned for years by Montreal, and eventually traded.

4. Griffin Reinhart - Eventually a kindred spirit for Murray, in that he’s most interesting for the picks he netted the Islanders (and as one of many cruel punchlines regarding Peter Chiarelli and the Islanders).

Things started getting a lot better from 5 on, as Morgan Rielly, Hampus Lindholm, Mathew Dumba, and Jacob Trouba are quality NHL defensemen.

James O’Brien is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @cyclelikesedins.