Player Discussion Darnell Nurse

7 is okay for a top pairing guy

 

But we're only seeing his absolute best so far this year. How do we know what he is through and through if he's still getting better?

 

That was a rumour that Gregor squashed

 

If he signs for much less than I think, sure. But he is being paid 5.6 right now, I don't see him asking for less than 7 considering rumoured asks of the past and that was before he collected a bunch of random points.

So for me, right now he's tracking to be in Trouba territory.

 

Giordano

 

Almost half way through the season..

 

If that's what a #3 guy looks like I haven't been paying attention all these years.

 

I'd say that's having chemistry with him and making the right offensive reads at the right time, not luck. If he was getting points because of McDavid being on the ice, then Barrie should have way more points because he's on the PP and 5 on 5 with him

 

Interesting opinion. Can't see Gio getting Norris votes over Nurse. We will see how the rest of the season goes.

 

Lol I was being sarcastic

 

And that was 4 years ago, so what he said still holds true.

 

Scoring twice your xGF with scrubs on the ice?

That's not chemistry.

Nurse and Barrie are getting about half the scoring chances for that Nurse and Bear did.

It'll even out in the end and his stats wont look nearly as good as they are now.

 

Lol so Nurse is putting up points with scrubs on the ice. If you mean the other teams players, you probably know its usually the top D pair and the top line/defensive line on as well since McDavid is probably on as well. You know this man

 

Should I have specified that the stat I was referring to was with McDavid off the ice?

It should have been obvious when you replied to a post containing "His inflated point totals actually come from his insanely lucky scoring when McDavid isn’t on the ice."

 

I do feel like I should transcribe Nurse's points this season, just for reference on how he got them: A deep dive:

Goal 1: A rocket wrister vs Vancouver. Probably the best shot I've ever seen him take. Well deserved.
Assist 1: Little pass to McDavid in his own zone. McDavid zips it across the ice to Archibald for empty netter.
Assist 2: Little pass to McDavid, who then does the rest going behind the net before feeding Draisaitl for the winner vs WPG
Assist 3: Little pass to Draisaitl, who skates down the entire rink and scores
Assist 4: Little pass to McDavid, who cross ice feeds to Nuge, great shot by Nuge and in.
Assist 5: Little pass to McDavid, who spins out Scheifele and cuts to the net and scores
Assist 6: Nurse taps it to McDavid, who feeds Draisaitl off the bar, then McDavid retrieves it off the bar and feeds Draisaitl across ice, goal.
Goal 2: McDavid passes it to Nurse high slot, Nurse zips it past Hogberg to make it 7-3
Goal 3: Nurse shoots, tipped at the blueline off Norris and Hogberg way out of position and in the net.
Goal 4: Kahun great pass to Nurse, great shot from the slot, good job at finding open ice
Goal 5: Nurse shoots from the blueline and right through Hogberg's five hole
Goal 6: Weber scores off his own player, given to Nurse
Assist 7: Nurse makes a nice play at the blueline to get a wrister towards the net, Yamamoto tips it in
Assist 8: Nurse routine pass to Barrie, Barrie then goes down low and feeds Puljujarvi nicely in front for a goal
Assist 9: Nurse goes into the zone, loses the puck in a tie up but McDavid scoops it up and feeds Nuge in front for a goal
Assist 10: Bit of a broken play puck battle, Nurse with a little forward pass (not sure if it was meant for Drai or Nuge) but it slowly slides to Nuge, Nuge corrals it and fires it past Markstrom

 

Id like to also point out that Nurse and Barrie are riding an on ice shooting % of 14.15 also.

 

Nurse has played incredible this season. This is a painful reality for some Oilers "fans" still.

No player is going to maintain a high level of play without blips or dips from time to time so I hope the usual suspects that love to rip on him keep this in mind when he inevitably has a stretch where he isn't playing out of his mind like he is currently.

What's disappointing, and expected, is the certain people (who've posted in the past couple pages) who I've noticed don't hesitate to jump on him when he ices the puck or misses an assignment in games absolutely refuse to acknowledge or praise this player when he does something well. Go through the GDT's - they make a concerted effort to willfully omit any positives. And that's becoming a constant occurrence. They almost seem more invested in seeing Nurse fail so their biases and notions can be proven correct at the expense of team success.

It's quite pathetic. I'd ask why Klefbom and other players don't have their individual points micro analyzed to a ridiculous degree in an attempt to diminish and denigrate them but it'd be a rhetorical query that we all know the answer to.

The guy has been our best defenseman for the past 2 seasons and is blossoming before our eyes. Better get used to it because Nurse isn't going anywhere, enjoys being an Oiler, is part of the leadership core and is tight with McDavid and Draisaitl.

 

I mean, if you're going to take a shot at me, at least tag me in it.

Klefbom also got his fair share of his points off of McDavid and Draisaitl. He hasn't played this season. The reality is that players on our team will see inflated totals because of the greatness of two of the best in the world. The goal is to find as many D-men as we can who can make their own plays as well as being part of the feast. Nurse, as I highlighted in the transcribed goals, has done it 3-4 times this year for points. I think going forward, Evan Bouchard has the best potential of our D to make the most plays on his own. Ultimately I don't believe Nurse is a naturally offensively gifted player, and the points have been a bit lucky, but I don't truly care about that in the long-run because in the playoffs, it is Nurse defensively that'll matter the most when we have other offensive playmakers. I just don't want us to pay him 8M per based off inflated offensive totals. I don't think he's an 8M defenseman, or really even a 7M defenseman. We might not have a choice.

Anyone who goes after my fandom of the team though automatically loses my respect. I don't get why Nurse playing really well would be painful for anyone, the arguments we have on here is how well is he actually playing - I think he looked amazing with Bear, some of his best hockey I've seen him play. I also think him and Barrie get hemmed in a lot in their own zone and that concerns me greatly. He's playing big minutes and he'll make mistakes - he's not meant to play 30 per, but our goalies have played good and he's made a lot of good plays and it is Barrie that is probably why it's a goose chase more often than not. I don't think he's been incredible though, but that's just me.

 

If this is a partial shot at me.

I've stated Nurse is playing like a beast this year and a number 1.

It's fair to have a discussion about a player, in the players thread, odd concept I know.

All our D are going to get most of their points playing with McDavid, since he contributes to nearly half the goals we score.

 

As it relates to the dissection of points, I find it problematic and an entirely arbitrary evaluation that's too open to interpretation. Assist 9 is a good example of this where, yes, Nurse does lose control of the puck but McDavid gets to that puck and is able to find Nuge only because of Nurse's battle on that play and his lifting of the Flame's defenseman's stick. He was fully deserving of his assist on that goal. Even though it goes against conventional wisdom and the norm, we're lucky enough to see how McDavid and Draisaitl's 2nd assists are routinely more instrumental to goals than primary assists a lot of the time. I'm not saying that Nurse is that or that he hasn't been extremely lucky on some of his scoring plays this season but these things tend to even out throughout a season and he's going to benefit from picking up complimentary points when others do 99% of the work. In contract negotiations these things aren't ignored and will factor in when Holland is dealing with his agent.

I also agree that Bouchard is the man going forward on the backend from an offensive standpoint and that defensively is where Nurse's focus needs to be though I believe that Nurse's offensive instincts have already and will continue evolving getting to play with and spend time around players like Barrie and Bouchard. We've seen steps he's taken this season in improving his transition game, puck handling, passing and offensive zone decisions. I think he's always had the intelligence for the game but at times the body and the mind haven't been in sync for one reason or another.

It was more of a general observation not particularly pointed in one direction but apologies for calling your fandom into question. I've never enjoyed the whipping boy obsession sports fans tend to gravitate towards and at times, whether its the Oilers or other sports teams I follow, the pessimism and constant piling on of certain players drives me insane. Nurse has gotten a rough ride from a lot of people from the moment he's been drafted and he does deserve credit for the season he's put together so far and we should be thrilled that one gaping hole and team need looks like it may be filled through drafting, development and most importantly, patience. Also agree that the Nurse-Bear pairing is more reliable - Barrie hasn't been terrible but tends to defend chaotically like Russel which has a tendency to pull Nurse out of position compensating and doing too much as well.

 

Can I say that I've liked Nurse more this year than years past, say that I think he's taken a step forward, but also say he hasn't been playing like a number one?? Still think that he's a liability too often?? Think that this season creates a soft schedule and his point totals are grossly inflated?? Just because he's forced to play #1 minutes does not mean he should. If his next contract has an 8 in it, I'm scared...

I think he's ideally a 6mil aav, 2nd pair option. No problem giving him term though.

Two things can be true at the same time.

 

Can everyone just agree that Nurse is easily one of the best defensemen to ever play the game?

 

Well he has been compared to Pronger

 

Apologies if I'm confused and you aren't talking about Nurse, but he has eight of his nine 5v5 points with McDavid on the ice, so I don't think that's it.


Also I don't think the Bear vs. Barrie is entirely a straight across comparison. They started to play ugly Tippett hockey after Bear was injured and there's likely some score effects happening. They're 5 minutes short of spending twice the 5v5 time with a lead in the 9 games without Bear as the 10 games with Bear. That's a lot of time spent just dumping pucks to center and going for a change.

 

I just hope Holland waits as long as possible to resign Nurse so he can most accurately gauge a fair market value.

As it stands, Nurse Barrie and Klefbom are all 3 essentially the same player and you really only need 1-2 puck moving defensive liability Dmen on a team. If you massively overpay one based on an upward trend or a single strong year then you run the risk of getting left holding the stick. As good as Barrie and Nurse have been this year I would not consider either of them a Norris contender at this point so hopefully they don't get extended for Norris tier money, but I would like to see them both retained.

As another poster said, temper your expectations, being the best Dman on a middle of the pack team in the weakest division in hockey during a season of limited competition is not a sound basis to give big money contracts on. Next season should be a better litmus test to see if Nurse is truly the franchise top pairing DMan we all hope he is.