Update: The Hurricanes reassigned Murphy to Charlotte on Saturday. He had dressed for one NHL exhibition game, backing up Anton Khudubin in the team's loss at Buffalo on Thursday.
A day after including him in their first round of training camp cuts, the Carolina Hurricanes had a change of heart regarding goalie Mike Murphy.
The Hurricanes announced Wednesday that Murphy, 24, was the first goalie assigned to Charlotte and was due to report to the start of Checkers camp in Raleigh on Friday. However, with the Hurricanes set to play three road exhibition games in the next three days on the heels of Wednesday’s 5-4 loss to Columbus at home, they elected to go with additional depth, officially recalling him on Thursday morning. He was expected to provide backup for that night's game in Buffalo.
The other 10 players assigned to Charlotte on Wednesday – forwards Victor Rask, Justin Shugg, Brody Sutter and Brendan Woods, and defensemen Danny Biega, Mark Flood, Austin Levi, Keegan Lowe, Rasmus Rissanen and Beau Schmitz, are expected to be formally assigned to Charlotte as originally announced.
After leaving for the Russian KHL as a restricted free agent one year ago, Murphy, who became the Checkers’ all-time leader in games played (77) and wins (39) by a goaltender in two full seasons with the team, is in the midst his first North American training camp since the fall of 2011. Barring injury to any of the organization’s goaltenders between now and the start of the season, he is expected to rejoin the Checkers along with Justin Peters, reuniting the team’s starting tandem from the 2011-12 season.
Carolina’s No. 1 goalie Cam Ward played the entire game against Columbus on Wednesday with Peters providing backup. Jeremy Welsh, who spent most of last season with the Checkers, scored to tie the game at 2-2 early in the second period on an assist from Charlotte’s all-time scoring leader Chris Terry, while 2012 AHL All-Star Michal Jordan chipped in two assists.
Drayson Bowman, who spent much of the last three seasons in Charlotte but tied his career high with 37 NHL games last season, picked up an assist while skating on the team’s top line with Eric Staal and Alexander Semin.