Edmonton Oilers: Darnell Nurse a Stud? Hardly.

This weekend we had quite the flame-throwing party going on over on my Twitter account. I’d thrown out the notion of a Darnell Nurse for Nik Ehlers trade and boy, let me tell you, Oilers fans did not like that idea one bit.

Most folks commenting said that the trade proposal was dumb or short-sighted, to put it politely and I really think that fans see Darnell as this big, tough defender who put up 40pts last season and is emerging into a top-pair defender when in reality, there’s a lot more to this and I’d like to try and break that down today.

First things first, I am NOT advocating that the Oilers trade Darnell Nurse. The people that said that Edmonton needs to stop trading young defenders before they blossom are right. What I am doing is attempting to open up more minds and give a clearer picture of this player.

Now, as a defender, your primary job is supposedly to defender your net and prevent scoring chances and goals against, right? Secondly, a defender must possess the ability to move the puck by either transporting it him/herself or transitioning it with a pass. Thirdly, and less so important, blueliners need to be able to contribute to the offense.

PREVENTING SCORING CHANCES AND GOALS AGAINST

Last year, I think it’s safe to say that the Oilers top shutdown defender, Adam Larsson, had a poor campaign. At least this is the story if you listen to the media in Edmonton. On the other hand, it was a breakout year for Nurse by those same accounts. Why is that? Is it the increase in offensive production (a mirage which I’ll get into later)? Because his defense was shit in 2018/19.

When I head over to Natural Stat Trick and check out Nurse’s underlying numbers, I don’t see anything that leads me to believe that this is a player who’s progressing and that’s fine too. Players do not develop in a straight line and some years are just poor for everyone but at 23, we should be seeing a bit more uptick in his game I feel, especially given the amount of ice-time he’s received as of recent.

From a puck possession (5×5, relative) standpoint, Nurse’s game cratered last season.

SHOT METRICS

My word… Blocked, unblocked, or just shots in general, it doesn’t matter. This is not good Oilers fans. Every single metric not only went down, but some of them also went down quite drastically. I don’t think that a paltry 9pts with the man advantage, where six of those PP points were secondary assists, garners positive reviews for Nurse let alone describing him as a stud.

GOAL/SCORING CHANCE METRICS

Sweet Baby Jesus! That is a lot of red and very little green. When Nurse was on the ice relative to his teammates, the ice got tilted some fierce and all offense died as well as the defense. Now, I use the relative form of these metrics because I don’t want you to think that it was all Kris Russell’s fault because it wasn’t.

I would love to tell you why Darnell Nurse’s underlying statistics tanked last season but I really don’t know. His 5×5 offensive zone starts decreased from 44.72% to 40.53%, maybe that had something to do with it. Perhaps the quality of his forwards decreased from 2017/18 to 2018/19? Was it the goaltending or perhaps the coaching? I can’t say.

All I can say though is that there’s very little about this past season that makes me feel good about Nurse, more so in the case of another Oscar Klefbom injury.

Using PuckIQ.com’s numbers, we can see how Darnell did versus different levels of quality and we’ll use a different shot metric (Dangerous Fenwick) only found on their website to get an idea of how Nurse when he’s on the ice against league’s best, its average, and its worst players.

I also want to show him in comparison to Edmonton’s best defensive defender (in my opinion), Adam Larsson, and one of the NHL’s best in Drew Doughty.

(1 Dangerous Fenwick is equal to the average Danger of the average unblocked shot, which turns out to be a 29ft wrister or so.)

So what I’m reading here is that when Drew Doughty was on the ice, his team didn’t create any Dangerous Fenwicks, in fact, it was quite the opposite. He spent most of his time defending against “Elite” competition. LA sucked, so perhaps that’s part of the reason.

Adam Larsson was the best vs. Elite competition here at getting the puck going the other way against the league’s best. It all has to be taken with a grain of salt mind you, as none of the numbers are great.

The defender who played over 500 minutes vs. Elite comps last year with the best DFF% Rel was Hampus Lindholm (ANH) with 5.50.

We’re seeing great improvement here for Darnell Nurse. Every number displays an uptick and that tells me that he’s a perfect 2nd pairing defenseman. That said, every player displayed showed improved metrics here which they should given the talent level.

Quite a few people have said that Larsson is no better than a 2nd-pairing defender, well his DFF numbers from last season seem to agree with that.

In just under 570 minutes last year, Thomas Chabot (OTT) had the best DFF%/60 in the NHL against “Middle” competition with 10.70.

Interesting. When playing against the league’s lowest level, all three players’ stats show deterioration but it is here where Nurse has the best numbers amongst the three. I don’t think that means Nurse should be getting third pairing TOI mind you, but it is indicative of a player who isn’t quite achieving his potential quite yet. And at 23, should he be? I don’t think so.

As for the best defender who played 400 plus “Gritensity” minutes (nobody played 500 minutes against the “Gritensity” bucket), that honor belongs to… Ottawa’s Thomas Chabot with a DFF%/60 of 7.70.

An argument could be made that we can twist the stats any way we want to in order to back up our theories, but I really feel in this case, the numbers and the eye-test dovetail nicely. If he was better, the numbers would tell us.

I’ve got no bone to pick with Darnell Nurse, he’s a fantastic young man and his intangibles and leadership qualities are through the roof, but that’s not enough for me at this point in time. I do not believe he passes the puck well enough, he’s often caught watching the puck in his own zone or chasing it, thus leaving his opponent wide open for a scoring chance or a goal. His hockey IQ lacks for a top-pairing defender and part of what I mean there is when he transports the puck (takes it on his own) from the defensive zone to the offensive zone (something he’s really good at when the seas part for him), he’s not skilled enough to make the necessary play consistently. He’ll pass the puck into a crowd of skates and sticks instead of making a better play along the boards or button hooking and waiting for his cavalry to arrive to help him out.

In my opinion, with his athleticism, strength, and snarl, Darnell Nurse could be one of the top shut-down defensemen in the NHL someday, but unfortunately, he’s not quite there. The numbers that we’ve gone over today tell me that he’s definitely not ready for top-pairing deployment and should the Oilers go through another stretch where Oscar Klefbom is unavailable, they would be in big trouble and IF there’s a trade that substantially helps the Oilers out somewhere else, it should be considered and here’s why,

• A lot of people say that the Oilers always do this, they take a young defender and move him before he hits his prime. Jeff Petry and Justin Schultz are recent examples but I’d like to counter that by asking, who did the Oilers have coming up through the system when those trades were made? I can’t think of any names right off the bat and that’s what really makes those deals seem terrible, right? Had the Oilers had some bluechip defensive prospects ready to go, nobody would’ve batted an eye at these trades. Petry and Schultz were getting booed out of town by the time they were traded anyhow.
• The Oilers have defenders graduating from Bakersfield. William Lagesson is probably the closest playing style comparison to Nurse that the Oilers have but he can pass the puck. If you are afraid that the Oilers would lose some of its toughness should Nurse be moved, have no fear. Lagesson is one tough MFer who fears nobody.  Caleb Jones is coming as is Ethan Bear and Evan Bouchard. Of course, these youngsters aren’t ready for massive minutes quite yet, but they’re very close. Especially Lagesson I feel. He’s been developed very well by the Oilers.
• Edmonton also has veterans that can fill in like Andrej Sekera and Kris Russell. Not ideal to have Russell playing on the 2nd pair, I get that, but he’s an option no less.
• I don’t know if Nurse will see any more PP time going forward (his TOI with the man advantage jumped nearly 4x from 2017/18 to 2018/19), but should Dave Tippett find himself with Doc on the 2nd unit, he’s probably going to get a few points there and the more points that he accrues, the higher the salary he’ll be demanding and make no bones about it, the cap hit for the average defenseman is getting higher every year. I’m not comfortable with the Oilers paying anything over $6M a year for Nurse, are you?
• For a guy who’s considered to be one of the Oilers enforcers, he doesn’t scrap very often. He averages a fight every 25 games or so… I reckon it’s the intensity in which he does go to town on a guy as to where he gets his reputation.

I’m on the fence when it comes to dealing Darnell Nurse. Most arguing for the Oilers to trade him are asking for a forward in return but what if they brought in a blueliner that was simply a better puck mover, or a better fit for the team, that was age-aligned with Darnell? Could that be Shayne Gostisbehere or Ivan Provorov out of Philly, Jared Spurgeon from Minnesota, or Brett Pesce from Carolina? Would you trade him to Vegas for Erik Haula and Colin Miller? What about Buffalo in a deal centered around Rasmus Ristolainen or Colorado for Nikita Zadorov (I’ve heard things aren’t rosy between him and MacKinnon…)?

I don’t feel that we should kibosh any notion of trading Darnell Nurse because he’s hit a few guys and thrown a few punches or because he’s only 23. As far as I’ve noticed, the Oilers defense had a lot of trouble preventing goals and scoring chances against last season and Nurse was part of that crew. Mind you, he was also part of the crew that went to the playoffs a couple of seasons ago too. I’m just saying we should keep an open mind on the possibility of the Oilers moving him to get better elsewhere on the roster.

What do you think? Did I miss something in my analysis? Let us know in the comments below!