Player Discussion Darnell Nurse is a #1 dman

[ZJuice]

If that's the expectation, I don't think you'll ever like the contract.

He's 28. He is what he is. He's going to play a bazillion minutes, take top matchups, skate the puck out, score some goals and make his fair share of brain farts. That's just who he is.

Just have to focus on the overall results. He provides huge value even if he looks bad doing it sometimes.

I think he would benefit from a smaller cap hit himself.. His demeanour on the ice changed before that contract even kicked in! He went from an exciting player that could (albiet not consistently) turn the tide with one rush, big shot, huge hit, or fight.
He suddenly stopped playing instinctly (callout to the fellow HFOiler that described his old play) and started playing a slow "choice based" style of play.
Sure, he was a little bit too predictable before, but now he is just making bad choices consistently...He's so powerful and so good on the boards (in the ozone Hahaha) that he makes up for that predictability. There was a rush he made last year where he was defending the puck like Draisaitl. Wish he went Darnell mode more often.

I would sincerely explore an Oilers 1st for Nurse traded back with retention.
Is a retention of $2mill per year too much? What is the $ value of a first?

There is ~$72.5m remaining on Nurse's contract, $2m is about 20.5% of the cap hit so would that make it cost a team ~$14.7m and 7 years of a retention slot for a 1st? Maybe we have to give up much more than a 1st just for a measly $2m space :'(

 

[Tobias Kahun]

I think he would benefit from a smaller cap hit himself.. His demeanour on the ice changed before that contract even kicked in! He went from an exciting player that could (albiet not consistently) turn the tide with one rush, big shot, huge hit, or fight.
He suddenly stopped playing instinctly (callout to the fellow HFOiler that described his old play) and started playing a slow "choice based" style of play.
Sure, he was a little bit too predictable before, but now he is just making bad choices consistently...He's so powerful and so good on the boards (in the ozone Hahaha) that he makes up for that predictability. There was a rush he made last year where he was defending the puck like Draisaitl. Wish he went Darnell mode more often.

I would sincerely explore an Oilers 1st for Nurse traded back with retention.
Is a retention of $2mill per year too much? What is the $ value of a first?

There is ~$72.5m remaining on Nurse's contract, $2m is about 20.5% of the cap hit so would that make it cost a team ~$14.7m and 7 years of a retention slot for a 1st? Maybe we have to give up much more than a 1st just for a measly $2m space :'(

Thats against CBA

 

[Oilers]

Nurse gets $9.25MM, nothing anyone here can do about it lol. It’s already done. There’s no trading it lol.

If he lives up to or not, just want him to play better. That’s it’s. Just play good steady defense. Don’t care if he ever jumps into the offense.

 

[DethOfDragnz]

Nurse isn't as bad as everyone says he is a number 1 D-man the problem is his overpriced contract. His 9 - 10 million contract might be the worst in the NHL for what you get from him.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

Blame Holland for that. He basically made it impossible to sign him to a fair deal. Walking a guy to UFA right before a big cap jump is beyond braindead.

Let's say you're negotiating a raise at work and you know your company is going to get a bunch of extra money in a few years and most of your coworkers are going to get big raises because of it. Are you going to take what's fair now and lock in for eight years or are you going to ask for what's going to be fair in a few years?

Holland's bungling pretty much caused them to have to use the cap in like 2025/26 as the framework for the deal. That isn't Nurse's fault. He isn't going to magically live up to that price tag because Holland had to pay him more than he's worth for a few seasons.

Nurse negotiated as well. Somewhere in his and his agent's minds they felt that he was worth that number or even more. At the end of the day the more you make the more pressure you have to perform in sports. That comes along with the $. Is he or his family any worse off if he signed for 8x8? He'd be getting a lot less flak had he stayed under Drai's cap hit. Look at the Toews deal, he knows the cap will be going up, he didn't bend Sakic over a barrel. At the end of the day Nurse wanted this # (or more) so he becomes this generations Horcoff. A useful player that is overrated after a big season and then became overpaid.

I don’t blame a guy for taking money that’s given to him, but there needs to be accountability. That person needs to be held to a higher standard. Especially when the money is shared between your coworkers and you.

People say he would have walked if we didn’t pay him that 9.25m, right? We were in no position to let him go, that’s for sure, but let’s not act like he was completely innocent himself in signing that absolute gargantuan. He had options that he used to leverage against the club, I’m sure of it. And that’s all good I think everyone deserves to have the right to negotiate, but you better believe if you take that much you’re gonna have people analyzing your every move.

I mostly blame holland for his contract, but I blame nurse for his play. He hasn’t improved since signing that contract.

Bingo. He could be improving his passing, decision making, positioning, etc. Instead he seems pretty content to be the player that he is. Meanwhile you have guys that are older in RNH and Hyman getting better as they age because they are looking to improve their games.

 

[ZJuice]

Thats against CBA

Stupid CBA...
and stupid EA NHL for making me think those trades were possible

 

[Barrsy]

When you take a certain portion of the pie because you feel like you are owed it due to your level of play and you fail to live up to that it is 100% reasonable to critique a player. Because he took $9.25 million vs. say $8 million we have $1.25 million less to bolster other areas on the team. It's the difference between having a guy like Ceci at $3.25 million and another D at $4.5 million for instance. He wanted the lions share of the cap on D so why shouldn't he be expected to be the undisputed #1 rock on the team?

No. That shouldnt color a persons evaluation of his play.
Its a very childlike view of evaluating a player

Why? Why isn’t it a valid reason to make criticism? Because you said so? What a garbage take.

And they aren’t ridiculous criticisms aside from the few people who call him a bottom pairing dman. There are legit concerns in his game, and for some reason you get in your feelings when people discuss them. That’s on you man.

I have no feelings on the matter. Its just a junk take. Like this is a junk post..
Should listen to Gregor on the subject. His take is not junk

 

[Ninety7]

No. That shouldnt color a persons evaluation of his play.
Its a very childlike view of evaluating a player


I have no feelings on the matter. Its just a junk take. Like this is a junk post..
Should listen to Gregor on the subject. His take is not junk

You can keep pretending like the salary cap doesn’t exist and doesn’t matter. But the rest of us live in reality. I honestly don’t even believe that YOU believe what you just typed.

Also crazy how you havent made a single reasonable argument yourself in this thread and all you’ve been doing is telling people to listen to Jason Gregor (lol) or hiding behind other poster’s post yelling “facts don’t matter!!!”. Yet you’ve questioned people’s intelligence and you’ve multiple times referred to people as children in this thread. I find it quite ironic considering you seem to appeal to authority like a child and you’ve only contributed vague statements and generalizations, again much like a child who isn’t capable of formulating analysis. You’re pretty much the peanut gallery.

So yeah, like I said in my first reply to you, you don’t have anything of value to contribute. Have a good night sir.

 

[TheNumber4]

The way Holland negotiates, I wouldn’t be surprised if he offered Nurse 9.25M straight off the hop, no negotiations, based purely on the fact it was an easy to make offer cause Jones had just signed at 9.5M.

In fact, another Poster here mentioned Nurse and his agent were considering 8s and 4 year terms I think, until the Jones signing went down.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

No. That shouldnt color a persons evaluation of his play.
Its a very childlike view of evaluating a player


I have no feelings on the matter. Its just a junk take. Like this is a junk post..
Should listen to Gregor on the subject. His take is not junk

Childlike is closing your eyes and ignoring when someone rightfully brings up the portion of the pie that he is taking.

Oilers top cap hits
McDavid $12.5 million (15% of the cap)
Nurse $9.25 million (11.1% of the cap)
Draisaitl $8.5 million (10.2%)
Ekholm $6 million (7.2%)
Hyman $5.5 million (6.6%)
Kane $5.125 million (6.1%)
RNH $5.125 million (6.1%)
Campbell $5 million (6.0%)
Bouchard $3.9 million (4.7%)

Like it or not these are the guys that are being paid to be difference makers. Nurse is paid like he's the 3rd best player on our team. Is he? Drai will get a bump soon which is why I say that Nurse is paid like the 3rd best player on our team. He is being paid like he is a top level 1D, he is nowhere near that. We should all just forget how much he makes when we say that we can't afford to get an upgrade on his pairing since he isn't good enough to carry lesser players and forget it when we have to nickel and dime quality depth players? No, we shouldn't. He asked for the moon and got it, now it's time to deliver his end of the deal.

 

[McDNicks17]

Nurse negotiated as well. Somewhere in his and his agent's minds they felt that he was worth that number or even more. At the end of the day the more you make the more pressure you have to perform in sports. That comes along with the $. Is he or his family any worse off if he signed for 8x8? He'd be getting a lot less flak had he stayed under Drai's cap hit. Look at the Toews deal, he knows the cap will be going up, he didn't bend Sakic over a barrel. At the end of the day Nurse wanted this # (or more) so he becomes this generations Horcoff. A useful player that is overrated after a big season and then became overpaid.

Like I said, 8x8 might be fair now, but he'd be stupidly underpaid in a couple years. Assuming the cap rises as it's projected, $8M in 25/26 would be equivalent to $6.5M now.

Players are often going to look overpaid on these 8 year deals for the first few seasons and that's usually with RFA years involved. Holland's dumbassery causing this one to be 100% UFA years is just going to make it look worse.

 

[Barrsy]

You can keep pretending like the salary cap doesn’t exist and doesn’t matter. But the rest of us live in reality. I honestly don’t even believe that YOU believe what you just typed.

Also crazy how you havent made a single reasonable argument yourself in this thread and all you’ve been doing is telling people to listen to Jason Gregor (lol) or hiding behind other poster’s post yelling “facts don’t matter!!!”. Yet you’ve questioned people’s intelligence and you’ve multiple times referred to people as children in this thread. I find it quite ironic considering you seem to appeal to authority like a child and you’ve only contributed vague statements and generalizations, again much like a child who isn’t capable of formulating analysis. You’re pretty much the peanut gallery.

So yeah, like I said in my first reply to you, you don’t have anything of value to contribute. Have a good night sir.

Your junk take is basically limited to “he’s over paid”. Which colours so many’s evaluation of his play.

Thats not evaluating a guys play. That’s evaluating a guys pay..
Thats a junk take.
For a starter read this.

The unpopular truth about Edmonton Oilers No. 1 d-man Darnell Nurse

Darnell Nurse, one of the NHL’s most valuable d-men year in, year out?

edmontonjournal.com

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Like I said, 8x8 might be fair now, but he'd be stupidly underpaid in a couple years. Assuming the cap rises as it's projected, $8M in 25/26 would be equivalent to $6.5M now.

Players are often going to look overpaid on these 8 year deals for the first few seasons and that's usually with RFA years involved. Holland's dumbassery causing this one to be 100% UFA years is just going to make it look worse.

Would he, though? He's not going to get better as he goes deeper into his thirities. Very few players improve at that point.

His best year was the North division year and that was 2 years ago.

That's the thing you need to consider. Even if the cap rises, will Nurse's play follow?

 

[Bryanbryoil]

Like I said, 8x8 might be fair now, but he'd be stupidly underpaid in a couple years. Assuming the cap rises as it's projected, $8M in 25/26 would be equivalent to $6.5M now.

Players are often going to look overpaid on these 8 year deals for the first few seasons and that's usually with RFA years involved. Holland's dumbassery causing this one to be 100% UFA years is just going to make it look worse.

The thing is that players typically sign max term deals because they want security and to have control over where they play over 7-8 years since most of them have NTC/NMC's included. He got the security in the event that a major injury really lessened or even ended his earning potential. That's the give and take with max contracts, you may outperform it at some point and may leave some $ on the table but if you get your knee taken out or you get a career ending concussion or even your play goes off a cliff the $ keeps rolling in. At this rate he seems to be pretty much what he is and the odds of him taking another step forward seemed to have ended the day that he got covered in that 8 year $74 million security blanket. The odds of him being worth his cap mid way through the deal depends on if he is trying to continue to improve and earn his pay or if he's just content to be where he is at a player right now. If he takes a step back he may never be worth his cap hit.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

Your junk take is basically limited to “he’s over paid”. Which colours so many’s evaluation of his play.

Thats not evaluating a guys play. That’s evaluating a guys pay..
Thats a junk take.
For a starter read this.

The unpopular truth about Edmonton Oilers No. 1 d-man Darnell Nurse

Darnell Nurse, one of the NHL’s most valuable d-men year in, year out?

edmontonjournal.com

His pay has nothing to do with him icing the puck and not passing the puck well or poor defensive reads. You'd think that he was the perfect defenseman and that his only flaw was his contract the way that you and some others talk about him. He can't go back and change his deal unless both he and the Oilers mutually terminate it (he'd be insane to do that), but he sure as hell can work on those things.

 

[Canovin]

Nurse wasn’t underpaid for several years. Maybe that one year in the Canadian division lol

 

[McDNicks17]

Would he, though? He's not going to get better as he goes deeper into his thirities. Very few players improve at that point.

His best year was the North division year and that was 2 years ago.

That's the thing you need to consider. Even if the cap rises, will Nurse's play follow?

Why would he need to improve?

He’s getting paid for what he is.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Why would he need to improve?

He’s getting paid for what he is.

At his level of pay he should be a Norris trophy level defenseman when right now I'm not even sure he's the best defenseman on his team.

Devon Toews just signed a deal that's much cheaper for a better defenseman if you want a good comparison.

Nurse's play is going to decline when he's on the wrong side of thirty. If he's not playing up to the level he's getting paid for now why would that happen 3-4 years down the road?

 

[Bryanbryoil]

Why would he need to improve?

He’s getting paid for what he is.

Straight up I hope that he doesn't have the same thought process that you do in this regard. "I'm good enough, I'm earning my pay, I've been paid already, no need to work harder to improve". That is a loser and selfish mentality for a pro athlete in a team sport. Players should always be trying to improve themselves until they can't play any more. It doesn't mean that they'll be as explosive, etc. as they are when they're in their primes but they can get better on draws, positioning, etc. Darnell should be doing all that he can to help Connor and Leon lift the cup in the next 2 years, because after that he might be the highest paid player on a rebuilding team because "he's good enough already".

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Straight up I hope that he doesn't have the same thought process that you do in this regard. "I'm good enough, I'm earning my pay, I've been paid already, not need to work harder to improve". That is a loser and selfish mentality for a pro athlete in a team sport. Players should always be trying to improve themselves until they can't play any more. It doesn't mean that they'll be as explosive, etc. as they are when they're in their primes but they can get better on draws, positioning, etc. Darnell should be doing all that he can to help Connor and Leon lift the cup in the next 2 years, because after that he might be the highest paid player on a rebuilding team because "he's good enough already".

He should have a desire to improve because Vegas beat him like a rented mule and got inside his head in a big way last year. They exposed him, and hard.

 

[K1984]

A simple thing that Nurse could do to improve his game is to improve his passing. For a guy that loves to try long passes he ices the puck far too much.

He needs to be in motion when he passes it. His instinct needs to become "when you get the puck move your feet, then look for a pass or rush it to the red line and dump." He always gets himself into problems when he has still feet and tries to fire a pass up ice. Even D to D passes can be problematic for him when his feet aren't moving.

When he is moving he creates a lot of space for himself, the opposition moves, and lanes open up.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

He should have a desire to improve because Vegas beat him like a rented mule and got inside his head in a big way last year. They exposed him, and hard.

That would be called pride.

 

[Forgot About Drai]

ITT: People who are shocked players are evaluated on their CAP hit in a salary CAP world.

If you are shocked by this, you must be new to North American sports or sports in general. Even in soccer, where there is no salary cap, players are constantly dragged for not living up to their wages.

To call it childlike to assess a players impact through a salary lens is one of the more ridiculous things ive heard on this board. I would actually call it naïve and unsophisticated to not consider a players cap hit when evaluating a player from a team building perspective.

When operating in a salary cap world, even if you are good player, if your cap exceeds your ability there is some detriment to the team. I think Nurse is a very good player, but I think at his his current skill level/cap hit he is hurting us from a team building perspective.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

ITT: People who are shocked players are evaluated on their CAP hit in a salary CAP world.

If you are shocked by this, you must be new to North American sports or sports in general. Even in soccer, where there is no salary cap, players are constantly dragged for not living up to their wages.

To call it childlike to assess a players impact through a salary lens is one of the more ridiculous things ive heard on this board. I would actually call it naïve and unsophisticated to not consider a players cap hit when evaluating a player from a team building perspective.

When operating in a salary cap world, even if you are good player, if your cap exceeds your ability there is some detriment to the team. I think Nurse is a very good player, but I think at his his current skill level/cap hit he is hurting us from a team building perspective.

It's honestly no different than any workplace. Some people are paid way above their ability.

I don't think anyone would seriously say Nurse isn't a good defenseman, he's just not worth what he's paid.

People want an upgrade on Ceci and rightfully so, but Nurse's salary is just one of many things blocking that from being a reality. His contract is hampering the team and his play isn't helping his image in that regard.

 

[T-Funk]

Why would he need to improve?

He’s getting paid for what he is.

Why would a professional hockey player need to improve? Yikes. He is definitely getting paid too much to be destroyed in the playoffs. We need to depend on him to win a cup and he can't be trusted back there when it really matters.