Tiny quibble: the Caps' farm team at the time was the Portland Pirates. They might have assigned Murphy to the Loch Monsters (were they called that, yet?), but it would have been a loan to an AHL team other than the one they used for player development.

That's usually a symbol that a player doesn't figure imminently in the parent club's plans (c.f. Rochester Americans, Olaf Kolzig). It says the Caps didn't want Murphy interfering with the development of future stars Owen Fussey, Yogi Svejkovski, J.F. Fortin and Maxim Ouellet, so it gave Murphy some ammunition to claim that he was essentially fired because of his injury. Lucky for the team that the judge spent more time on the cause of the injury, eh?

Also, I can't open the .pdf at the end. Mind checking the link?