Team rewards player development consultants Cory Murphy and Justin Rai with bigger roles. Murphy now director of player development and Rai serves in new position as head of player strategy
The Kraken announced promotions for a pair of hockey operations staffers Thursday, naming Cory Murphy as director of player development and Justin Rai in the new position of player strategy. The moves reflect extraordinary work performed by both former player development consultants.
Murphy has worked the last two seasons as the point person for working with defenseman prospects, highlighted by his work with 2022 third-round draft choice Ty Nelson, who progressed from a third-pair defenseman role to top-four minutes with penalty kill and power play duties by season’s end with American Hockey League affiliate Coachella Valley, and 2022 fourth-rounder (No. 100 overall) Tyson Jugnauth. The Western Hockey League Portland star won the Bill Hunter Memorial Trophy as the league’s best defenseman, leading all WHL defenders last season with 13 goals and 76 assists in 65 regular season games before posting a dazzling four goals and 29 assists for 33 points in a deep 18-game playoff run.
“I’m excited to get started, it’s just a huge honor,” said Murphy, replacing Jeff Tambellini, who accepted an assistant general manager position with the Tampa Bay Lightning. “Our main objective is making sure all of our prospects know we’re here to help them in any way we can, continuing to monitor their progress and making sure they are on the right track moving toward the goals we have set for them.”
Murphy recognizes that developing those prospects, which currently number 43 in the Kraken talent pool, teaches both the Kraken systems and style of play, plus individualizes each player’s best chances to become NHLers, whether it be a shutdown or puck-moving D-men, a fourth-line agitator, or a forward projected to score goals.
“Each prospect is unique and every player does have a different set of skills that are going get them to the League,” said Murphy, who played 17 pro seasons, appearing in 91 NHL games with Florida, Tampa Bay and New Jersey with significant stints in the American Hockey League along with the top pro leagues in Sweden, Russia and Switzerland. “It’s our job to make sure we’re clear with where we see the prospects’ paths. We do everything we can to help them along that path to the NHL.”
Rai Steps Into Elevated Role
In the Kraken’s new role of head of player strategy, Rai will work with Seattle’s roster of players under the coaching staff. He engaged in conversations with Kraken general manager Jason Botterill and head coach Lane Lambert about joining the NHL team home and away after three seasons working with prospects from draft years to debut seasons with Coachella Valley. “In the NHL, it’s all about winning and the players following a structure and consistency within that structure,” said Rai. “My job is to be able to research the league, research our players and figure out the existing trends. Most specifically, it is my role to be additive to Coach Lane’s staff, making sure players can better execute his structure at a higher level, staying on the same message as the coaching staff … I’m grateful for the opportunity and that the Kraken organization puts its employees in spots to succeed.”
Rai’s love of the game and childhood immersion into skills drills created by his field-hockey Olympian father sparked a post-playing day career into the cutting edge of player development. He is a deep thinker about what NHL players and prospects most need to learn to excel in games.
Rai’s breakthrough to cutting-edge player development and player strategy came from doing a deep study of how the elite NHLers play without the puck, most specifically reading the play to come next.
“Over four to five years, I picked the top 25 guys in the world, which is subjective, but all players I like to watch and who would lead the league in points,” said Rai, who played and coached in the British Columbia Hockey League. “I would clip them every single night of the season to figure out commonalities. Was it a read they made off the rush? Was it the way they moved, was it a deke they did? Was it a read they made off the rush? Was it an ozone off-puck movement that they made?
“I started realizing that these reads that these top-end players are doing are their reads within the coaching system, but they’re finding ways to get themselves open. I looked for and identified any commonalities among the players and turned it into a video program.”
Connecting to the Kraken
That video program transitioned Rai to be “less of a skills coach to a more player development-focused role.” Rai started working with players about “their reads and the high-volume plays you’re making, your off-puck movement, how that’s affecting your overall play and the overall team’s play.” The Kraken front office has charted Rai’s innovations and regularly hears rave reviews from prospects he has worked with across the Kraken prospect pool.
For Murphy, he began his post-playing career by serving as an assistant coach for three seasons in Sweden. When the Kraken offered a player development role, he was thrilled to follow his calling.
“I always gravitated towards the player development side,” said Murphy. “When I was coaching and even toward the tail end of my career, I was thinking more about helping the young players I was playing with get better. I’m really happy on this side of things.”
While the new director of player development will embrace the supervisory aspects of his role, Murphy said his short-term plan is to continue to work hands-on, video-on with the newest draft class of prospects, especially the four defensemen picked in June. He plans to get on the road, work them, and have player development consultants follow suit.
“Seeing the prospects in person is huge,” said Murphy. “It gives us a chance to get into their home city, what they are going through, both on- and off-the-ice.”
Hockey News