Player Discussion Darnell Nurse is a #1 dman

[Arpeggio]

I don’t think anyone said he wasn’t a number one. But we do point out the mistakes he makes which he does quite often lol.

A lot of people do say that, I've seen people on here say he's a #3 on a contending team. There's no question he's a #1, he'll go down as one of the better Oilers defencemen of all time, especially since he'll probably play here for 15 years at least.

 

[Fourier]

What metric would you like to look at? Ice time? Led the league in even strength+short handed average ice time for the past 2 years. Quality of competition? First, only, and probably last player in NHL history to lead the league in both ES+SHATOI and QoC. Production? going at a 40-50 point pace over the past 2 seasons and off to a good start already. Teammates? He managed to convince large chunks of the fanbase (myself included) that #4/5 guys like Bear/Barrie/Bouchard/Ceci were real top pairing RHD every time he played with these dudes. Also as for the scoring through the top 6 argument, Nurse was for most of the year the only dman on the team who had a positive xGF% without McDavid on the ice, a large reason for his poor on-off even strength numbers without McDavid in 2020-21 was b/c he played with the defensive black hole that is Tyson Barrie and we had the worst bottom 6 in the NHL. He's clearly one of the best dmen in the league, just more of a low end #1/high end #2 than a true Makar/Fox/Hedman level high end 1D.

Do I think he's worth 9.25 million? No. But do I think this team is definitely positively extremely certainly without a shadow of a doubt beyond f***ed without him? Absolutely.

Nurse suffers from the optics of a guy making $9.25M who makes the kind of mistakes that stick in the mind of anyone watching the games. What the stats say is that between these mistakes he does a lot of things that help you win in a role that no other defenseman on the team could play. While I am of the opinion that you generally need both the eye test and the stats together to get a full picture of a player, in this case, the eye test may well create an impression that is not a fully accurate assessment of the player.

 

[NotAVacuumSalesman]

Nah Ceci is made to look better defensively b/c of Nurse. Not the other way around. We saw this with Bear. Bouchard, and Barrie too (or at least made Barrie look like a regular bad defensive dman instead of the dumpster fire he was without Nurse). Ceci is able to play back more b/c of Nurse's ability to skate faster than all but a small handful of players in the league and long reach to get back in time and prevent odd man rushes. Nurse can aggressively shut down a lot of entry attempts by challenging the puck carrier at the line and forcing dump ins that Ceci can easily gobble up. Nurse is also usually the one clearing the crease/going into the boards. Ceci didn't have even close to this many options when playing with Keith last year and also doesn't do nearly as well when paired with Kulak b/c he has to be the one playing aggressively/challenging.

The bolded is anecdotal.

An example of last night, he was caught out of the position and joined the rush only to race back to defend a 2 on 1 going the other way, as he's trying to cover the trailing man on the oddman rush.

He's athletic and a great skater but in terms of positioning he's all over the place. A lot of people think it's great and that's the reasoning we're seeing his xG% in the top10. In the long term, health-wise, he should play a simplified game, and play with better structure.

 

[Zerotonine]

Agree Nurse is a number 1 but not by this metric where Makar Toews are not even in the top 20 of a very early sample size.

Bunch of people avs fans included are saying Makar Is off to a rough start this season...

 

[Tobias Kahun]

Petry sure didn’t look like a guy who gives up 1.3 xGA/60

 

[Captain Controversy]

Bunch of people avs fans included are saying Makar Is off to a rough start this season...

Cup Hangover or Players are learning how to play him.

 

[iCanada]

Agree Nurse is a number 1 but not by this metric where Makar Toews are not even in the top 20 of a very early sample size.

Eh, Makar and Toews have been dreadful this far this year, and last year they were #2 only slightly behind Ekblad & Weegar.

 

[NotAVacuumSalesman]

Petry sure didn’t look like a guy who gives up 1.3 xGA/60

He looked totally lost on Nuge's GWG.

 

[Tobias Kahun]

He looked totally lost on Nuge's GWG.

Out for a nice easy skate it looks like

 

[FlameChampion]

What metric would you like to look at? Ice time? Led the league in even strength+short handed average ice time for the past 2 years. Quality of competition? First, only, and probably last player in NHL history to lead the league in both ES+SHATOI and QoC. Production? going at a 40-50 point pace over the past 2 seasons and off to a good start already. Teammates? He managed to convince large chunks of the fanbase (myself included) that #4/5 guys like Bear/Barrie/Bouchard/Ceci were real top pairing RHD every time he played with these dudes. Also as for the scoring through the top 6 argument, Nurse was for most of the year the only dman on the team who had a positive xGF% without McDavid on the ice, a large reason for his poor on-off even strength numbers without McDavid in 2020-21 was b/c he played with the defensive black hole that is Tyson Barrie and we had the worst bottom 6 in the NHL. He's clearly one of the best dmen in the league, just more of a low end #1/high end #2 than a true Makar/Fox/Hedman level high end 1D.

Do I think he's worth 9.25 million? No. But do I think this team is definitely positively extremely certainly without a shadow of a doubt beyond f***ed without him? Absolutely.

Have to agree. I like the player. Glad hes here. Wish he was making less. He makes too many mistakes for a 9.25mil defenseman. But would we be f*cked without him? Pretty much.

 

[tardigrade81]

A lot of people do say that, I've seen people on here say he's a #3 on a contending team. There's no question he's a #1, he'll go down as one of the better Oilers defencemen of all time, especially since he'll probably play here for 15 years at least.

Agreed.

 

[Drivesaitl]

I
It seems that it is more based on individual plays that stand out as frustrating

I do wonder if he falls into a hole with fans in that many assume anything good about his outcomes must be due to playing with McDavid and Draisaitl, fair or not

A lot of people don't discern how to evaluate hockey. Darnell Nurse will be seen to be involved with some mistakes in a game because he is innately involved in so many plays and is so active and covers so much ground.

The wrong deduction from this is that Nurse is around miscues. For a D hockey is a complex rock paper scissors game as opponents try to beat you. So that being a 1D on any club involves a lot of times you are beat.

Its the wrong way to look at it. The correct way to analyze D is how many stops they make in a game. How often do they stop rushes, seal opponents from puck, Take pucks away etc. D should be looked at in terms of their positive contributions and watching to see where they are made.

In contrast lazy viewing is just focusing on D instances where they get beat or give up a chance. Which happens to all D and which happened a lot even to Bobby Orr when he was playing the Canadiens.

Darnell is a sound 1D and we are lucky to have him. If we ever win it all he'll be the most important player on the ice.

 

[Davo Ikinzom]

So everyone on that list above Nurse is a #1 dman?

 

[Nostradumbass]

I
It seems that it is more based on individual plays that stand out as frustrating

I do wonder if he falls into a hole with fans in that many assume anything good about his outcomes must be due to playing with McDavid and Draisaitl, fair or not

I hope people can look at Darnell Nurse as a top pairing defenseman instead of a $9.25MM defenseman.

One will meet expectations, the other will likely be run out of town and Edmonton will be down to zero top pairing d-men.

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

Petry sure didn’t look like a guy who gives up 1.3 xGA/60

Against us it says he was a 5xGA/60 player which seems pretty accurate

 

[Tobias Kahun]

Against us it says he was a 5xGA/60 player which seems pretty accurate
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A couple days ago a poster said how dumoulin would be our best D man.

Wonder what his thoughts are now

 

[Barrsy]

It's become a trend when you only respond when I bring up Nurse's contract lol

Yeah, I dont even have a clue who you are/were or that you had an strange obsession with Nurse. I just thought it comical that you thought our GM signed Nurse cause he was a buddy with a few players. It kinda gives one an appreciation of other thoughts.

 

[Forgot About Drai]

Have to agree. I like the player. Glad hes here. Wish he was making less. He makes too many mistakes for a 9.25mil defenseman. But would we be f*cked without him? Pretty much.

This is exactly my opinion.

 

[GOilers88]

A lot of people don't discern how to evaluate hockey. Darnell Nurse will be seen to be involved with some mistakes in a game because he is innately involved in so many plays and is so active and covers so much ground.

The wrong deduction from this is that Nurse is around miscues. For a D hockey is a complex rock paper scissors game as opponents try to beat you. So that being a 1D on any club involves a lot of times you are beat.

Its the wrong way to look at it. The correct way to analyze D is how many stops they make in a game. How often do they stop rushes, seal opponents from puck, Take pucks away etc. D should be looked at in terms of their positive contributions and watching to see where they are made.

In contrast lazy viewing is just focusing on D instances where they get beat or give up a chance. Which happens to all D and which happened a lot even to Bobby Orr when he was playing the Canadiens.

Darnell is a sound 1D and we are lucky to have him. If we ever win it all he'll be the most important player on the ice.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

Eh, Makar and Toews have been dreadful this far this year, and last year they were #2 only slightly behind Ekblad & Weegar.

Makar and Toews are one of the best pairs in the league. Full stop.

Bunch of people avs fans included are saying Makar Is off to a rough start this season...

It’s Game 6. He didn’t forget how to play hockey this summer.

 

[Fourier]

A couple days ago a poster said how dumoulin would be our best D man.

Wonder what his thoughts are now

That was in response to a post of mine. I did not really want to get into a debate since at the time it seemed most were simply looking for a reason to write off the season. But it was interesting to see that on the Pittsburgh board they were claiming that Dumoulin was done. Hyperbole has no bounds on these boards it seems.

 

[iCanada]

Makar and Toews are one of the best pairs in the league. Full stop.



It’s Game 6. He didn’t forget how to play hockey this summer.

Yeah, they're really good. But everyone has bad games. They've had 6 mediocre games, like the rest of the Avs.

Ofcourse that reflects poorly on their stats.

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

Makar and Toews are one of the best pairs in the league. Full stop.



It’s Game 6. He didn’t forget how to play hockey this summer.

Nobody said they're gonna stay like this. The reality is they're on a Cup hangover and have had a slow start to the season. They'll be back to normal by midseason.

A couple days ago a poster said how dumoulin would be our best D man.

Wonder what his thoughts are now

Absolutely hilarious considering by far the biggest gap last night was the Nurse-Ceci pairing over the Dumoulin-Letang pairing.

 

[RipsADrive]

I wish we didn't have the chorus of "9.25 million," posts every time he makes a mistake.

The graph doesn't really match my eye test as I think Nurse has been off to a bit of a slow start this year along with the rest of the team, but he's more than capable of living up to his contract and is definitely a #1D.

 

[Stoneman89]

I know it’s early. But some of you literally need to cheer for another team. Darnell Nurse is a #1 dman and a scholar.

View attachment 598574

His pairing was ranked #7 in the entire league prior to the bludgeoning of the Penguins last night.

He's a scholar?? Have you ever heard him interview?