That's a fair view. Nurse does have to follow up last season... where he was definitely top pairing worthy when you look at performance at both ends of the ice... with more good seasons to come.
I think it's actually prudent to lock up Nurse to as low as possible now for as long as possible now... $5-5.5 million x 8 years so that he can become a cheap contract by year 3/4 and at worst fair value or only slightly overpaid if he stagnates over the next several years.
$5 million isn't going to buy much of a top 4 dman in 3-4 year's time.
Matheson is already getting almost that today and he's really nothing elite. By 2021/22... the cap will likely be $90+ million and a $5 million contract will be less than 6% of the total cap. $90 million/23 contracts means an average contract will be almost $4 million by then.
I mean if we sign Nurse for 5.5 long term that will look awful compared to the Ryan Ellis contract as yes Ellis got almost a mill more but Ellis is also worth more than a mill more than Nurse. Same with Dumba at 6.
5 mill may not buy much in 3/4 years time or it might. We have cap issues already and paying Nurse 5-5.5 long-term after half a good season is such an Oilers thing to do and isn't a great idea.
To add to this...
Looking at comparables in this range.
Slavin $5.3 mill Better than Nurse at almost all advanced stats except goals for % however that can be attributed to Slavin having no one close to McDavid on the team. Not saying thats the ONLY reason why Nurses is better but when Slavin has a better Scoring chance % and High Danger scoring chance %...it makes some sense
Klingberg $4.25 mill ($4.85 if using ch% today). Klingberg is massively better offensively, for most of their career their advanced stats are quite close. Klingberg is clearly better offensively and his defensive numbers have been on par with Nurse or slightly worse
Pesce $4 mill. Outside of this year, Pesce had much better offensive numbers. Main reason I think his numbers were worse this year was less games played. And his defensive Numbers are comparable.
So Long term I would say that $5 mill is definitely an overpay. $5.5 would be laughable.
$4.5-$4.75 is the most we should go.