When defenseman Connor Murphy first arrived in Chicago in September 2017, depth forward Lance Bouma was wearing No. 17 for the Blackhawks.
One year later, Bouma left, and Dylan Strome took over No. 17. Three years after that, Strome left, and Jason Dickinson took over No. 17. One year after that, Nick Foligno came in and took No. 17 from Dickinson, who switched to No. 16.
If that wasn’t confusing enough, consider that Dickinson also became the fourth Hawk that Murphy had seen wear No. 16. Marcus Kruger, Nikita Zadorov and Jujhar Khaira had worn it shortly before him.
It’s the same story with so many other numbers, too. Nothing more thoroughly demonstrates the incredible amount of turnover — after turnover after turnover — that Murphy, now the Hawks’ longest-tenured player by far, has witnessed.
“When you’re thinking about memories of guys, when you see them on Instagram or you’re friends with them still, you’re trying to think back, ‘What year was that when they were here?’ ” Murphy said. “Some guys were here shorter than others, but you still feel like you gained close connections with each one of them. It’s weird.”
Murphy came from the Coyotes as part of the controversial Niklas Hjalmarsson trade and walked into a United Center locker room laden with veterans from the Hawks’ dynasty era, even though things were just starting to fall apart. Back then, a player with seven years of Hawks tenure was hardly remarkable at all.
Considering the constant churn the last seven years have brought, however, it has become remarkable. Murphy is something of a unicorn at this point — the one guy who, thanks to his consistency or his contracts (he’s entering the second-to-last year of his current deal) or pure luck, has managed to stick around through two rebuilds and several generations of teammates.
The game Thursday against the Sharks was Murphy’s 424th career appearance for the Hawks. Twelve of the other 17 skaters in the lineup had fewer Hawks appearances than that — combined.
“[Our roster] started old, got younger and younger to the point where we were super-young, and now we’ve gotten older again this year,” Murphy said. “You never know how it’s going to change.”
Murphy, 31, has lived in the city long enough now to truly settle down. He and his wife, Kristina, had their first child, a son named Tucker, this past summer. He has been overjoyed about that.
At their wedding in the summer of 2023, however, many of the attendees — including Strome, Alex DeBrincat, Brandon Hagel, MacKenzie Entwistle and Taylor Raddysh — were already or have become reminders of the Hawks’ roster churn.
DeBrincat’s No. 12 is now owned by Zach Sanford. Hagel’s No. 38 belongs to Ethan Del Mastro. Nobody has claimed Raddysh’s No. 11 yet, but he was the third guy to wear those digits during Murphy’s tenure (after Brendan Perlini and Adam Gaudette).
Other numbers with especially convoluted lineages during recent years include No. 24 (Dominik Kahun, then Pius Suter, then Sam Lafferty, then Anders Bjork and then Jaycob Megna) and No. 34 (J.F. Berube, then Carl Soderberg, then Kevin Lankinen, then Kurtis Gabriel and now Petr Mrazek).
No. 8 has been worn by only four players since 2017, not five, but they’re all fairly memorable: Nick Schmaltz, then Dominik Kubalik, then Jack Johnson and now Ryan Donato.
And No. 25 has been worn by only two players during that window, but it popped up in Murphy’s head for a specific reason: During training camp, he sometimes caught himself thinking Alec Martinez was actually Jarred Tinordi.
“Each position hasn’t just changed once; it’s been a few times over,” Murphy said. “It’s just part of it, and it’s funny to see different guys come in with the same number. Sometimes it’s a similar player, too — the number suits a certain role. It’s fun to see the change.”