Edmonton Oilers Talk: Will Nurse’s New Deal Guarantee He Finishes his Career Elsewhere?

Coming from an Edmonton Oilers point of view, BLH provides you with excerpts from the latest NHL news, rumors, and speculation from all of the internet’s best sites including Spector’s Hockey, The Fourth Period, NHL Trade Talk, The Hockey Writers, Sportsnet, The Athletic, TSN and more!

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The Hockey Writers (Jim Parsons)

4 Reasons Darnell Nurse’s New Deal With Oilers Isn’t an Overpay

Market For Defensemen in Their Prime Has Been Set

If you’re one of the many fans who take a massive issue with the contract, it’s less likely you have an issue with Nurse and this specific deal than it is you have an issue with how much top-pair, No. 1 defensemen in the NHL are being paid in general.
When you also consider that Erik Karlsson makes $11.5 million, Drew Doughty makes $11 million, Roman Rosi $9.059 million, P.K. Subban $9 million, and Alex Pietrangelo $9 million… there’s a history of NHL GMs paying big money for No. 1 defensemen. Not every deal works out to be a huge win. That said, this is the price you pay for a defenseman each respective franchise has committed to as the building block around which the rest of the blue line is built.

BLH’s Thoughts: Anybody know what happened to Karlsson, Subban, and Pietrangelo? Is Drew Doughty an $11M defender anymore? Have our thoughts changed on Roman Josi since he signed his new deal?

Now that Nurse is in that category, there’s a giant target on his back.

Oilers are Paying for 8 UFA Years

Had he signed a four-year deal now and become one of the game’s best blueliners, he could have easily been a $10-$11 million defenseman when his next deal came around.
Nurse was giving away eight opportunities to sign different deals in his best years. Had he exploded as an elite defender next season or the season after, — some would argue he’s on his way to already doing so — he’d have been worth a lot more.

BLH’s Thoughts: Considering that the Oilers have Barrie and Bouchard penciled in to the lineup next season, there won’t be any offensive explosion for Mr. Nurse. He’ll be responsible for keeping the puck out of Edmonton’s net.

Oilers Paying For What Nurse Will Become

This past season is what put Nurse in the conversation of players like Hamilton and Jones. Still, it’s what Nurse will offer over the next number of seasons that the Oilers have based this contract upon.
… if Nurse turns out as the Oilers are projecting, there’s a good chance Oilers Nation looks back at this deal and see it in the same way they view the Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid deals.

BLH’s Thoughts: I don’t know who put Nurse in the conversation with Dougie Hamilton because neither of them really belong in the same chat. Hamilton scores and he scores a lot, whereas Nurse has yet to prove he’s on the same level as the New Jersey Devils’ latest addition to the $9M club.

If we’re going to make comps, I believe that the closest one that we should be making with Nurse is to Alex Pietrangelo. Stastically, they’re both in the same ballpark and stylistically, in my opinion, as well. So, to get this guy for another nine years is a real score.

Part of the Oilers Core

This contract is also about what Nurse is as a human being, a driven member of the Oilers roster and a player who turned himself into much more than most hockey scouts and insiders projected he could become.
This is a player whose attitude and drive is infectious. This is the type of player you need to have on a championship roster. The Oilers haven’t won anything yet, but they’re now in the business of buying wins and the players who can best help provide them. Nurse is the kind of guy you want going to war with you and you want him going to war for you over the next nine years, not just the next few.

BLH’s Thoughts: I think this is a good point. The off-ice part of the game, the human element, is huge and the Oilers have some very important young defenders coming up through their developmental system. Having someone like Nurse to show them what it takes to play and stay in the NHL is worth it’s weight in gold.

The Athletic (Allan Mitchell)

Lowetide: Oilers sign Darnell Nurse to a massive 8-year contract extension

Darnell Nurse has a chance to be the rarest of all things in Edmonton Oilers history: a defenceman drafted and developed by the team who also plays his entire career in the city… It’s never been done.

BLH’s Thoughts: I’d be willing to bet that Nurse won’t spend the entirety of his career in Edmonton. When I see the likes of OEL, Erik Karlsson, and PK Subban getting traded even with their big tickets and with the way that Nurse’s deal is structure, I could definitely see Edmonton moving him down the road in the right scenario.

Nurse’s minutes and minutes per game against elites tower over the rest of the group, with his possession rates (DFF is smart Corsi, giving extra importance to dangerous and close-in shots) less than 50 percent (48.7%) and below par relative to his teammates (-1.7).
- The big reason for it comes via the drag that Tyson Barrie brings to the top pairing.
Over the last three seasons, Nurse has been improving on his outlet passes.
Nurse has also applied some calm feet to his shooting game, taking his time to pick corners and using a quick, heavy wrist shot to go shelf on goaltenders. The days of ‘grip it and rip it’ are gone for Nurse, and his scoring totals reflect it.
One of the main reasons for the big contract surrounds offence. Nurse plays the game with an edge and has real defensive value.

BLH’s Thoughts: These are the kinds of subtle improvements that I look for in a defenseman as he gets older and now that we know that Darnell is capable of some significant contribution offensively at 5v5, we’re going to need to see progression in other elements of his game.

Would it be unfair to request he develop into a Ryan Suter or a Mark Giordano-type? Those two are tough as nails but man do they eat a shit ton of TOI for their clubs and have done it for most of their 30s.

Nurse delivers his offence at five-on-five, so these aren’t empty-calorie power-play points.
Fans will point to Nurse playing with Connor McDavid as being a big reason for the offence, and that’s absolutely true.
If Chiarelli had signed Nurse in 2018 to an eight-year deal, four of those seasons would have been RFA. Even two years ago, there would have been some relief (two RFA, six UFA) on a long-term deal.

BLH’s Thoughts: Considering around that time players like Ryan Ellis (8rs/$6.25M AAV), Cam Fowler (8yrs/$6.3M AAV), Jaccob Slavin (7yrs/$5.3M AAV) were signing long-term deals, the Oilers would’ve gotten Nurse on a massive discount (compared to the one he just signed) but probably would lose him as he turned UFA or would be paying him $9M-$11M on a long-term deal that would’ve ended in his late-30s.

So, as much as one may dislike this contract, when Philip Broberg, Evan Bouchard and Dmitri Samorukov have made it and it’s time for them to make bank, Nurse may be deemed expendable. What I’m trying to say is that it gives the club time to slow play these younger players whilst maximizing their usage of a playing asset in the prime of his career.

I believe Nurse will hold his value to an NHL team over the course of the deal. He won’t always play with McDavid and he may never post a shooting percentage close to last season, but he’s fast as lightning, big, strong, tough and can defend.
Nurse will be an attractive target in trade should a situation arise that makes it possible and necessary.
If things don’t work out, and Draisaitl exits, followed by McDavid the next year, Nurse should hold enough value for the club to receive assets in exchange for what will likely be a complete rebuild.
Taken as an individual transaction, isolated from all around it, this contract is an overpay and the organization should have reduced risk years ago and bought some UFA seasons along with the remaining RFA years.

BLH’s Thoughts: I reckon the team is going to have to completely fall apart for Draisaitl and McDavid to walk away voluntarily. Even then, as Bob Stauffer’s been saying this week, Nurse will be asked to “talk” to Leon and Connor to keep them around in the event that those two allow their deals to run out.

Oilersnation (Jason Gregor)

Thoughts about Blueliners

This past season Tyson Barrie had 13 second assists and five first assists at 5×5, which led to many suggesting he is the “second assist King.” However, look at the past six years: He has 15 more first assists than second. Only three D-men in the league had 15+ more first assists than second.
- I’ve always chuckled at people trying to downplay second assists, because often they can be instrumental in an eventual goal.
In May, I thought the market would sit at $8m AAV for Nurse and Dougie Hamilton, but that changed when Cale Makar got $9m/year and every year was an RFA season, and then Seth Jones signed for $9.5m and Zack Werenski signed for $9.53m.
Nurse will need to keep producing like he has 5×5 with his high-priced contract, and keep rounding out his game defensively.
You likely will see lot of “Nurse had a career year” and got paid takes. Many will point to his goal totals and say he doubled his SH%.
- Nurse has the third most 5×5 goals among D-men in the NHL the past three seasons. He has a 5.5SH% in that time. His points/60 have improved at a reasonable rate from 1.04 to 1.14 to 1.19.
- Nurse’s offence has been consistent for three seasons, while his decisions with and without the puck defensively is where I have seen the biggest improvement.

BLH’s Thoughts: Nurse didn’t have a “career year” per se but the fact that he did so well 5v5 didn’t hurt. So I’d say that in addition to the slew of $9M deals that were just handed out had massive impacts on how much Darnell just signed for.

Nurse’s overall offence didn’t have a massive spike last year. He had 1.04 P/60 in 2019, then 1.14 in 2020 and 1.19 in 2021. Yes, his goals were up last season, but his points weren’t up much. Where he did improve was his decision making with and without the puck.

BLH’s Thoughts: Is it just me or do we sometimes see minimal increases in statistics and use them as proof of substantial progression?

What I mean is that when I see DN’s pts/60 trend over three seasons that Gregor is using, I can’t really wrap my head around how long it would take to score a goal when your rate is .15 pts/60.

I get it though, proof of positive increase. I’ve done it before but it’s pretty marginal.

Secondly, I notice that the rate of increase is trending down and I wonder if that metric regresses to something closer to 1.05 next season when the Oilers aren’t playing Canadian teams only, and at that point, is it finished moving down or will it plateau around there?

The trick is that the other metrics will need to see an uptick, most specifically the ones we find in the “against” columns.

Bouchard is training with Nurse this summer, and that will only help him. Nurse’s game has improved the past three seasons due to the tireless work he does in the off-season.
I expect Nurse-Barrie to start the season as the top pair, mainly because continuity to start the season is important, but I believe Bouchard will be in the top-four midway through the season.

BLH’s Thoughts: Does anybody know if Caleb Jones or Ethan Bear trained with Darnell Nurse whilst they were part of the club?

The plan here is obvious, isn’t it? Nurse and Bouchard will be d-partners very soon and the seeds are being sown right now.

NHLRumors.com

Corey Maksiak: The New Jersey Devils only have Janne Kuokkanen to sign as far as restricted free agents. After that, there is one more near minimum depth player to sign.

That gives New Jersey around $12 million of cap space still. This leaves them plenty of room to make at least one more significant move maybe even two.

Jason Chen of The Hockey News: The free-agent frenzy has calmed leaving some voids for teams like the Arizona Coyotes and Buffalo Sabres among others.

Arizona has one, big problem. They ate so much cap space with all these reclamation contracts yet lost so much. The Coyotes traded their captain away and best scorer in Conor Garland then lost three more defensemen to boot.

The Buffalo Sabres need to shed Jack Eichel. Now, can they? Buffalo is a team that ranked 28th in offense, 29th on defense, and goaltending now without Linus Ullmark is worse.