A rookie defenceman struggles when given too much responsibility in the middle part of a season and all of a sudden he's entering bust territory... good lord do you people hear yourselves? If they could have sheltered him properly everyone would be positively wet with excitement about Nurse. He's a rookie, mistakes will happen and they'll happen less and less as he gets more experience.
a young Hedman had a lot of great gifts but poor hockey IQ as well
A rookie defenceman struggles when given too much responsibility in the middle part of a season and all of a sudden he's entering bust territory... good lord do you people hear yourselves? If they could have sheltered him properly everyone would be positively wet with excitement about Nurse. He's a rookie, mistakes will happen and they'll happen less and less as he gets more experience.
My stance with Nurse has always been the same: I really like his top-end potential as a defender, but I question his overall offensive upside. With his skating ability, size, and grit, I really don't see many ways he doesn't emerge as a legit top 4 option in the next few seasons. However, I just don't see the creativity or hockey sense of a defender who will score many points in the NHL. He's never really put up much offence anywhere outside of his 2013-14 season in the OHL where he was fed a lot of powerplay minutes. Given these limitations, I don't really see a #1 defenceman in the making. That really isn't the end of the world though, especially considering where he was drafted.
I've said it before, but I really think Travis Hamonic is a great comparison for him. If you look at their offensive numbers, they're really quite similar:
Nurse:
17 @ OHL: 0.60PPG
18 @ OHL: 0.78PPG
19 @ OHL: 0.92PPG
20 @ NHL: 0.45PPG (with a small sample size)
Hamonic:
17 @ OHL: 0.36PPG
18 @ OHL: 0.70PPG
19 @ OHL: 1.07PPG
20 @ NHL: 0.42PPG
Taking this all into account, I think we can expect Nurse to emerge as a minute-eater who will put up 20-30 points per season and maybe put up a few more points if he's given the minutes.
Long-term he will solve some issues in the defensive end but I don't think we should be waiting for him to become a solution on the powerplay.
People said similar things about Magnus Pajaarvi. He's a forward, yes, but has size, hands, skating ability, all good qualities in a young player. Most people thought at his worst he could fill out as an elite third or fourth line energy player/checker. Unfortunately, the guy has nill hockey IQ. He's now on his way out of the league.
Teubert was another similar guy who was big, nasty, had above average skating, solid looking defensive Dman... Of course, he had limited puck skills and was dumb as a bag of hammers, so now he's out of the league.
Point is, if you're not a smart player or show some semblance of an all round game, things can turn on you fast. Nurse really needs to work on things. With his hands and skating and skill level he should be able to be much more offensive and the team should try to tap into that's why he should be down in OKC. He did not look good for big parts of the season on the defensive end either, I understand part of that was coaching and lack of options, but still. Big off season for him.
A rookie defenceman struggles when given too much responsibility in the middle part of a season and all of a sudden he's entering bust territory... good lord do you people hear yourselves?.
Teubert was anything but an above average skater.
Lets not make the same mistake Toronto made when they traded away Chuck Norris on skates:
Two things:
1) those jerseys are amazing, and
2) It's only a mistake if we don't get good value. If we traded Nurse as part of a package for a bona fide, established top pairing D in his prime who could help us right now, would you still think it a mistake?
Considering he'd likely be a small part of a much bigger package, yes.
This team should have a ton of patience for a guy like nurse. Even if he doesn't put it together right away, a Dman with his toolset is a very rare thing. If the guy has to play two more seasons in the ahl/bottom pairing then whatever. We shouldn't have to rely on him at this point anyways. It never hurts to have some young depth that forces people down/out of the line up when they're ready.
I don't see anyone here calling Nurse a bust or entering bust territory. Everyone agrees he will have an NHL career, it's just a question of his ceiling.
There's absolutely no indication this organization is bringing Nurse along slowly.It wouldn't shock me if they only picked up one D in the offseason and counted on Nurse to play heavy minutes as a second pairing guy. Because Oilers.
They played him way too high in the lineup and he got eaten alive. Should've kept him in the AHL.
What they did with Davidson is exactly what they should be doing with Nurse.
I'm not so sure about that. It's not his fault he was one of our most durable options with veterans on the payroll like Nikitin and Ference providing zero depth.
Right now it looks like he will be competing with one of Davidson or Klefbom with others young guys like Reinhart in the mix as well for the final d spot and that's before we see what changes happen this summer.
I don't think it's Plan A, but if they only land one top four D this offseason, i bet their fallback plan is
Klef-new guy
Nurse-Sekera
They ******* love this kid.