Yesterday, the talk on Oilers Twitter and Oilers talk radio was about trading Darnell Nurse or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. An old adage in hockey is “get good players, keep good players”, right? But I feel like that is too simple. Sometimes good players gotta go for whatever reason. Be that of their own accord or that of a crazy GM, getting good players doesn’t always mean keeping them.
I’d prefer to say, get good players, keep good players unless you can trade for better ones.
Let’s take Darnell Nurse for instance. Now, I’m not the biggest fan of “Doc” because I feel his hockey IQ (defensive and offensive) isn’t quite where I’d like it to be and he has trouble passing the puck (just ask Jesse Puljujarvi). Where I love Nurse is when he can showcase his physical superiority, like when he rushes the puck from one zone to the other or when things get gritty. He’s got the physical tools, there’s no doubt in my mind about that, but I’m afraid, at least at this point in his career, the more subtle skills that make a dman great aren’t quite there… Yet.
I see a lot of people saying that Kris Russell is dragging him down and I don’t really believe that. They played over 1000 minutes together 5×5 but unless I’m reading the numbers wrong, I fail to see where Russell is dragging Nurse down.
These are the advanced metrics for the pair courtesy of Natural Stat Trick.
CF% w/ – 45.23
Nurse CF% w/0 Russell – 49.91
Russell CF% w/0 Nurse – 44.42
FF% w/ – 45.53
Nurse FF% w/o Russell – 48.31
Russell FF% w/o Nurse – 49.48
SF% w/ – 46.07
Nurse SF% w/0 Russell – 48.96
Russell SF% w/0 Nurse – 47.91
GF% w/ – 50
Nurse GF% w/0 Russell – 43.59
Russell GF% w/o Nurse – 52.17
SCF% w/ – 46.33
Nurse SCF% w/o Russell – 48.50
Russell SCF% w/0 Nurse – 47.46
SCGF% w/ – 53.23
Nurse SCGF% w/o Russell – 45.45
Russell SCF% w/o Nurse – 55.56
HDCF% w/ – 44.24
Nurse HDCF% w/o Russell – 47.11
Russell HDCF% w/o Nurse – 53.95
HDGF% w/ – 44.68
Nurse HDGF% w/o Russell – 47.62
Russell HDGF% w/o Nurse – 54.55
I think some will say that at 23 years old, topping 40 points is quite the accomplishment and I would tend to agree, but I will return serve with this question, would Darnell Nurse have scored as many points had Oscar Klefbom not been injured?
I don’t think he would’ve.
The Oilers have a terrible history of trading young dmen right as they’re about to blossom. Two names that come straight to mind are Justin Schultz and Jeff Petry. Man, how good would the Oilers be with those two in their lineup today? I think with that said though, did the Oilers really have the defensive prospect depth than that they do now?
Edmonton has three defenders that are ready to take the next step, William Lagesson, Caleb Jones, and Ethan Bear. Would it sting the Oilers as much to deal Darnell Nurse for help elsewhere now as it did back when Petry and Schultz were moved knowing that a 23-year-old William Lagesson could be ready to step in or a Caleb Jones?
Now Lagesson doesn’t have the north-south game that Darnell has but he does have the same snarl and he can move the puck quite well. Then again, maybe at the NHL level, Lagesson would need some time, but in my opinion, he’s about as ready to go as any prospect in the Oilers system should be and with the right partner, the transition period would be minimal. I look at him and see a young version of Mattias Ekholm. Who’d you rather have, Ekholm or Nurse?
So I would have zero qualms moving Nurse for an upgrade at forward and not just because of the on-ice product. Darnell Nurse will be a $6M defenseman by next season and I think I’d have a hard time being comfortable with him being paid that kind of money for what he produces.
You can be sure Toronto would be interested in him if he were to hit the market. Maybe there’d be an appetite for a deal centered around William Nylander… Who knows?
THE NUGE
Would you trade Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and the 8th overall pick to the Chicago Blackhawks for the 3rd overall selection in this year’s draft so that you could draft one of Jack Hughes (unlikely), Kaapo Kakko (unlikely), or Bowen Byram (likely)? This was a question posed on the Jason Gregor Show yesterday.
The reason I included Hughes and Kakko there is because the legend of Bowen Byram is growing by leaps and bounds as we get nearer to the draft in June. There’s some talk that he might even jump up to no. 2, he’s that good. Bob Stauffer, host of Oilers Now!, said that he’s been told by a number of scouts that Byram might be the next Scott Neidermayer. Gregor said he skates like the former Ducks/Devils rearguard but has that bite you’d see in a Drew Doughty or a young Duncan Keith. He’s a future no. 1 defenseman is what we’re being told.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WA8TL2Nyyo
The Edmonton Oilers do not have a future no. 1 dman in their fold and there are only a handful of them in the league as it is. So, knowing that RNH is getting impatient with the Oilers organization and the fact that the last defender in Edmonton that was that good might’ve been Paul Coffey, would you make that trade? Would Chicago make that trade?
I might. Considering how hard it is to land that sort of player, I might be willing to make that trade. I think the big question on my mind is if the Vancouver Giants superstar is projected to be as good as Miro Heiskanen or Rasmus Dahlin? If yes, then I’m all over that deal. Could you imagine a future pairing of Byram and Bouchard?
The argument against it would have to be the lost offense of RNH, right? My feeling is that the team would find a way to replace it and I think being lost in the emotion of this deal would be the $6M in cap space freed up. Could Ken Holland find a way to replace Nuge’s production with that space? I would like to think so.
Another argument against the deal might be Edmonton’s lack of skilled forwards coming up in their system. They’ve got quite a few good blueliners progressing nicely, why add another?
I will say this though, Ken Holland’s success in Detroit had a lot to do with selecting a talented young defender out of Sweden by the name of Niklas Lidstrom, do you think he’d want to recreate that scenario with Bowen Byram leading the charge?
What do you figure? Let us know in the comments below.
