Player Discussion Darnell Nurse

[MessierII]

What’s the rush? Uh, the contract that was expiring? Look I agree our cap is a mess. The Nurse contract is ugly. My point is that the mistake with Nurses contract wasn’t Hollands fault.

It wasn’t expiring until this summer. He signed him a full year before his contract was expiring.

 

[redgrant]

I would say Holland panic signing him was a mistake. Why did he have to extend him last summer? Why the rush?

I agree the reality is the FMV of Nurse would be in line with the recent contracts signed for Seth Jones and Dougie Hamilton. If I were holland I'd try and get him to take a bit of a discount for 8m but posters saying Nurse is worth 5m are out to lunch.

 

[Pizza!Pizza!]

I would say Holland panic signing him was a mistake. Why did he have to extend him last summer? Why the rush?

I agree the reality is the FMV of Nurse would be in line with the recent contracts signed for Seth Jones and Dougie Hamilton. If I were holland I'd try and get him to take a bit of a discount for 8m but posters saying Nurse is worth 5m are out to lunch.

Exactly, and since the price of 'quality' D men seems to keep rising annually Holland probably thought he'd be saving the team 500k/yr by signing him a year early too.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

What’s the rush? Uh, the contract that was expiring? Look I agree our cap is a mess. The Nurse contract is ugly. My point is that the mistake with Nurses contract wasn’t Hollands fault.

The contract hasn't even expired yet. If Holland negotiated with Nurse throughout the entire year do you think he still makes north of 9 the way he's played this year?

To be frank I think you're missing the deadline on his contract. He's not getting paid 9.25 now. He's going to be paid that next year.

 

[Trafalgar Sadge Law]

What’s the rush? Uh, the contract that was expiring? Look I agree our cap is a mess. The Nurse contract is ugly. My point is that the mistake with Nurses contract wasn’t Hollands fault.

How is it not his fault? Back in 2020 Nurse asked for a 6x6 extension. Holland being the baboon that he is decided to bridge him TWO YEARS STRAIGHT TO UFA. Either bridge the one year or give him the 6x6 he picked literally the worst possible option.

 

[BarDownBobo]

How is it not his fault? Back in 2020 Nurse asked for a 6x6 extension. Holland being the baboon that he is decided to bridge him TWO YEARS STRAIGHT TO UFA. Either bridge the one year or give him the 6x6 he picked literally the worst possible option.

Unless you’ve got a source I’m calling major bs on this claim. The bridge deal was $5.6 per, there’s zero chance that the Oilers rejected a $6x6 on him only to turn around and give him a bridge at 400k less.

 

[BudBundy]

The contract hasn't even expired yet. If Holland negotiated with Nurse throughout the entire year do you think he still makes north of 9 the way he's played this year?

To be frank I think you're missing the deadline on his contract. He's not getting paid 9.25 now. He's going to be paid that next year.

I realize it doesn’t kick in until next year. Many agents and players don’t like negotiating during the year. It’s risky. At any point they can shut it down. The closer they get to free agency the bigger the draw. “It’s only 6 more months, I’m gonna ride it out” mentality. As soon as his most recent bridge was signed because the money wasn’t there for a long term deal, the die was cast.

How is it not his fault? Back in 2020 Nurse asked for a 6x6 extension. Holland being the baboon that he is decided to bridge him TWO YEARS STRAIGHT TO UFA. Either bridge the one year or give him the 6x6 he picked literally the worst possible option.

I don’t recall that happening and that doesn’t even sound plausible. The narrative at the time was that there wasn’t enough cap space left for a long term so a second bridge was agreed to. I totally agree that a one year bridge would’ve been waaaay smarter but the Nurse camp knew what the bridge to UFA meant.

 

[LaGu]

How is it not his fault? Back in 2020 Nurse asked for a 6x6 extension. Holland being the baboon that he is decided to bridge him TWO YEARS STRAIGHT TO UFA. Either bridge the one year or give him the 6x6 he picked literally the worst possible option.

This makes no sense at all. So they threw out a $6Mx6 years deal, only to sign him for $0.4M less on a bridge to UFA?... If that is true I'm on board with any and every criticism of Holland, but it sounds crazy tbh.

edit: already addressed above, posted without reading the replies.

 

[Bank Shot]

How is it not his fault? Back in 2020 Nurse asked for a 6x6 extension. Holland being the baboon that he is decided to bridge him TWO YEARS STRAIGHT TO UFA. Either bridge the one year or give him the 6x6 he picked literally the worst possible option.

From what I read Nurse was asking for a contract starting with a 6 long term. That could mean 6, it could also mean 6.9.

I don't think the Oilers had the cap space to go over 6 at the time.

6.5 would sure look nicer now, but it was an overpay at the time which everyone would have been furious about.

 

[gordonhught]

From what I read Nurse was asking for a contract starting with a 6 long term. That could mean 6, it could also mean 6.9.

I don't think the Oilers had the cap space to go over 6 at the time.

6.5 would sure look nicer now, but it was an overpay at the time which everyone would have been furious about.

In hindsight, 7.5 would have been the right number. Sucks to give the player a big contract after his best year, only to see regression after the player is agreed to the terms.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

In hindsight, 7.5 would have been the right number. Sucks to give the player a big contract after his best year, only to see regression after the player is agreed to the terms.

You'd think the Oilers would've learned about this by now. It's basically the exact same scenario with Kassian's extension.

 

[McHelpus]

You'd think the Oilers would've learned about this by now. It's basically the exact same scenario with Kassian's extension.

And now for the next 9 years people will be saying "if Nurse starts playing like he did in the bubble then he's worth his contract"

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

And now for the next 9 years people will be saying "if Nurse starts playing like he did in the bubble then he's worth his contract"

The North division was one of the worst things that could've happened to the Oilers. Lots of bloated statlines and extensions to go along with them.

 

[DraiInSeiderKuch]

I would say Holland panic signing him was a mistake. Why did he have to extend him last summer? Why the rush?

I agree the reality is the FMV of Nurse would be in line with the recent contracts signed for Seth Jones and Dougie Hamilton. If I were holland I'd try and get him to take a bit of a discount for 8m but posters saying Nurse is worth 5m are out to lunch.

At this moment Nurse is worth 5M max after this season. He has been outplayed by Ceci. I would have rather lost Nurse for nothing then sign him to a crippling franchise destroying 9.25x8 contract a year earlier then he had to.

Terrible GM, he has been worse then Chia.

 

[Mr Positive]

On the plus side if we win game 6 Nurse should have fresh legs for game 7.

 

[redgrant]

At this moment Nurse is worth 5M max after this season. He has been outplayed by Ceci. I would have rather lost Nurse for nothing then sign him to a crippling franchise destroying 9.25x8 contract a year earlier then he had to.

Terrible GM, he has been worse then Chia.

Hes not worth 5m. If youre playing 23+ minutes a night all hard minutes with no special teams youre not worth 5m.

Realistically Holland could have negotiated better and came back around 8m. You do realize if they offered 5m plenty of GMs snatch him up at around 8m?

 

[FanOfSadTeam]

But if Holland actually exercised patience in this (which he oddly did for RNH), do you think Nurse gets paid the same AAV as he's about to?

So Holland should've predicted Nurse would do worse this season?

 

[redgrant]

So Holland should've predicted Nurse would do worse this season?

No, but logically he would have been better off exercising patience. There was no rush on the horizon. Whats the worry? Made zero logical sense and goes back to one of the chief complaints about Holland being very poor when it comes to his contract ability.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

So Holland should've predicted Nurse would do worse this season?

Scoring career highs in a weak division with a super high shooting percentage? Nurse's career high in sh% was 5.1 a few years ago. He more than doubled that least year. A slight regression was not a stretch at all.

 

[Beerfish]

So Holland should've predicted Nurse would do worse this season?

Yes for sure he should have. 16 goals was an aberration of a year scoring wise. You could see it coming a hundred miles away.

 

[McDraekke]

They have increased steadily, but Nurse is not a defenseman that should be earning north of 9. He's going to be making more than some other teams entire first pairings. This also has the ripple effect of driving up the prices for other young defensemen looking for extensions here.

Holland failed on this extension, big time.

This happens all the time though. There’s always players that make more money than they should because they have leverage. Without Nurse our backend would be a tire fire (particularly prior to Ceci and Kulak showing some great skills out there). He and his agent smartly used that to their advantage. It is what it is.

Maybe not worth 9+, but he’s still a top pairing dman when he’s on. I understand that means there are consistency issues, but he’s still a top dman, nonetheless.

 

[McDraekke]

I realize it doesn’t kick in until next year. Many agents and players don’t like negotiating during the year. It’s risky. At any point they can shut it down. The closer they get to free agency the bigger the draw. “It’s only 6 more months, I’m gonna ride it out” mentality. As soon as his most recent bridge was signed because the money wasn’t there for a long term deal, the die was cast.


I don’t recall that happening and that doesn’t even sound plausible. The narrative at the time was that there wasn’t enough cap space left for a long term so a second bridge was agreed to. I totally agree that a one year bridge would’ve been waaaay smarter but the Nurse camp knew what the bridge to UFA meant.

People here seem to think the GM can sign a player to whatever deal they want to lol. As if the player and agents (whose job it is to negotiate the best deal for their client) have zero impact on the transaction.

ITT: Local trolls be trolling. Who do we blame now that we’re in the playoffs? Nurse of course! Time to run yet another player out of town!

 

[BouchBaby]

Nurse is tough, skates like the wind, and atop of all that he is pretty good in the Ozone. He is the best Dman on this team.. even right now in his down funk. Nurse has better play in him judging on his past, so we know what his top gear looks like and we should have faith he can return to that former level of play.

 

[North Cole]

The mistake was bridging him in the first place, because as soon as the league recovered and salaries were going up we were f***ed anyways. He was always going to be our #1, so him eating ice time and getting points was to be expected. Not too mention he expired as a UFA so the entire next contract is UFA years instead of a mix of RFA/UFA years which generally lowers the price. People point to the Makar contract as a gotcha, but that's less years and he signed as an RFA, if Makar is signing the nurse contract it's 11M+ so they aren't even comparable.

Basically had to sign him to whatever because we had no replacement for him, wish we could have got him under $9M but once you jam yourself up with the bridge you either get it done or let him go for free. We are probably a worse team with him gone for free and people want to "compete" in McDavid's prime, don't they?

No issues if you want to take a dump on Holland for ending up in this spot, since I do too, but I think we also need to sit down and be real with ourselves. How much more mad would we be if Nurse was unsigned and left in UFA for nothing or we traded him at the TDL instead of adding pieces for our playoff push? Personally, I'd be way more mad because it would signal the team was fine wasting another year of McDavid.

 

[xoczar99ox]

Like I posted in the PGT. If I had a time machine I’d bet my bloodline that had Nurse played last night we would be out of the playoffs right now. The team is better without him.

Ive felt for year we should have traded Nurse for another defenceman when his stock was high. He’s the most over player on the team and it drives me nuts when he gets bunched in with McDavid and Draiasatl as being a leader and star on this team. He’s a middle pairing minute munching defenceman, not much more.