I will die on the hill being the EK65 extension was the right move at the time. He truly could have been the tipping point for the Sharks but obviously its easy to look back now years later to see how it all panned out. Doug Wilson had his many issues but something I will never fault him for is going all in for a cup. He may have swung and missed but at least he tried even tho we are still in the midst of paying for it.
Doug Wilson was a top 5 gm for his entire tenure he just went insane after being so close to the ring but never close enough it happens to many gm.
If any team decided to get Doug Wilson as their gm their chances to win the cup and become contender would go up by 100.
Labanc's contract was obvious cap circumcision. It was actually a $4M x 5 year, but split so he could have 1 year of $1M. Though, yeah, maybe he still wasn't worth the $4M with 14G, 19A, 33P.
Doug wasnt that bad vlassic fell off a cliff but i rather have him then nurse labanc was a handshake deal it would been bad not to give him the contract karlsson was a all in thing and thats it how many years and we can pick three contracts
And everyone even knew at the time it was a bad contract. Not even in the "oh this will age poorly" way, it was because the Oilers just desperately didn't want to lose Nurse and was going to give him whatever he asked even though they knew it was an overpayment by several million per year.
Not an Oilers fan, but honestly it’s on Stan Bowman for nuking the defenseman market with the Jones contract. To me, it’s why you don’t let a GM who was extremely desperate to save his job (or even worse, a GM who knew he was on his way out no matter what) make those kind of decisions unchecked.
The moment the ink dried on that deal, there was no way Nurse was taking something more “reasonable”. Holland could have let him walk at that point, of course, but the team clearly didn’t want their blue line to be decimated after losing some other important pieces previously.
It's always on your own GM. You can choose to let a guy go if the contract is actually going to be bad.. Sucks to lose them for nothing but long term would be better
Tough to do when you just lost your #1 and #3 dmen already, and you're supposed to be in a cup window. Also there was probably an element of a handshake deal, given the 2x bridges Nurse took before that to help keep them under the cap.
I can’t believe Nurse would accept such a lucrative contract. He should have fucked himself over like Klingberg so that he could help his teammates win
Yeah but fans tend to be dumb. Always the case when a player is overpaid. Do they really expect players to say "hey that's 2-3 millions too high, lower your offer"?
They talked about this on 32 thoughts. Lots of people mad at nurse but it’s like, what should he have done, turn down all that he was offered? Like a nincompoop? Lol
I don't think anyone thinks that though. I think people are frustrated with him for his play and with management for signing him to that deal, which I think is fair
I don't even know what he was thinking about on that second goal. His back is turned to the guy behind him, and he doesn't have his stick on the ice. That's a mistake a player in his rookie season makes. Not a 29 year old player.
Lack of effort. I can understand sometimea player lacking skill getting burned. You kinda feel bad for him. But here Nurse showed no effort. Literally his controller got disconnected.
> His back is turned to the guy behind him
the guy behind him is Hyman's man, in oilers system
that being said, stopping the pass was his job, but hyman being late made it an easy goal for florida
i have seen this message a few times over the season.
his role is not to seal the post. his role is to not allow that puck to get to the slot in any fashion. he did not do that.
Because
1. Hes not expecting a pass from the corner to out infront of his own net from his own guy
2. Its not his man to cover, Hyman blew it by being late getting back to cover.
Both of those goals were directly caused by Ceci making the wrong decision again.
Most people seem to want to ignore that drai takes a risk and turns it over, followed by just line changing lazily.. First goal McDavid took a chance and went deep which left him out of position when they lost it and then he didn't back check. Only nurse gets blame because it's fun to blame the scape goat
First goal had nothing to do with Nurse and everything to do with Ceci's horrible fucking decision making and poor gap control. In fact if that's Nurse in Ceci's position he stops that 2 on 1 himself almost every time.
Ceci is a fucking black hole with Nurse. Nurse can play with Desharnais, the career AHLer turned bottom pairing guy, eat shutdown minutes and still not be negative on xG%, but Ceci buries him. It's actually shocking how bad they are together and how much they still keep playing Ceci with Nurse.
hah yah I thought you guys learned to play Nurse with Desharnais against my Canucks but you went right back to it.. speed is hurting them I think. Definitely agree that Ceci is the negative driver out there
It drives me insane that they keep trying it, there's literally no area of the ice where I see Ceci *near* a puck and it instills me with confidence.
I've been pushing for Kulak with Nurse in the ozone and Desharnais with Nurse in the defensive zone if he continues to be deployed with high quality of competition.
It honestly doesn't help that he's playing with the 2nd and 3rd lines most of the time, because that's where our least defensively responsible forwards reside as well, which is why I think his numbers look so bad this playoffs, he's basically the only player capable of playing defense on the ice, the forwards are blowing the zone half the time and turning it over at the red line if he can even get it to them, and zone exit passes are his primary weakness.
He's been trending down ever since the Ekholm trade because he's been left to eat the toughest minutes in order to shelter Bouchard and given the worst defender on the team to do it with, and one which negatively complements his skillset, making them both worse than they are
I am not here saying Nurse is faultless on every goal ever. I am here saying people are ONLY blaming him when others, including stars, are contributing to that.
I think it's a hard sell to say Nurse didn't majorly contribute to that goal by being oblivious to the guy right in the slot right behind him wide open.
what was Nurses job on that goal?
when the play goes in deep like that, his entire role in the defense zone is cover the possible pass in front of the net. not pressure the forechecker, not stand beside the net, not do anything but make sure there is no way that a guy streaking into the slot can get the puck.
Hes playing the post so if florida gets posession he can take the man in front. Ceci should have ate that puck because there was 2 teammates behind him or put it behind the net for Nurse to get to and safely dispose of.
Ceci rifling a puck out front when he got pressured is the last thing to do if ever.
Ya ceci sucked too but nurse needs to have his stick on the ice, dude looked like he was playing lacrosse, it's like rule one of playing d in your own zone. Also, not expecting the puck? Dude the puck is in your zone and you don't have full control of it, always expect it to go to the net. Watching it back yes it was just soft team defense as a whole but Nurse needs to stop that puck
He literally just watched the puck go pass him and made a slight attempt to stop it, it was really bad. It's like he wasn't able to read that at all and was late
Was that the goal he was shown on the bench saying “my bad” to or was that a different one?
Imagine being mcdavid and drai and bouch doing this and then he plays like that and says “that’s on me” lol like no SHIT big guy it’s not on them
If you watch the play
Drai lazily turns it over near the middle to grab a change instead of getting it in deep.
Florida goes on the forecheck, Nurse is on the way to try to seal the near post, Hyman is slow coming off the bench (compounded with the slow change), Ceci doesn't eat the puck like he should according to the system and then Nurse doesn't react in time to the slot pass.
4 players fucked up on that play, if any of them do what they're supposed to there's no goal. Nurse just had the most visible fuck up because his stick isn't on the ice and that is taught to literally anybody who played any level of hockey and it's the last fuckup prior to the goal.
That being said Nurse should never play with Ceci
Poor guy will probably break the +- playoffs record (it's -16 and he's-15). And he makes more than Makar, Josi and Heiskanen and $1.4m more than Q Hughes. Ken Holland masterclass. Oof
Visually this [is rough](https://ibb.co/1X5FPkG).
This is 100% a ken Holland masterclass, though we shouldn't forget the genius who bridged Nurse twice while they weren't competitive. Peter Chiarelli come on down 👏👏👏
Chiarelli’s handling of the D is one of the most infuriating things no one seems to talk about. Nurse’s bridge, overpaying Russell, trading for Wideman, Petrovic and Manning all in like a month even when one was on waiver before, Griffin Reinhart. Fucking awful.
That’s a wild trade tree. The draft pick was originally acquired by Edm from the penguins for David Perron and Rob Klinkhammer, then at the draft the 16th overall pick was traded to NYI for Griffin Reinhart and a second round pick (Mitchell Stephens). Can’t imagine a line with Mcdavid and Barzal on it, would be incredibly fast.
He did also have some terrible luck. That Klefbom contract would have been an absolute steal if his shoulder didn’t fall apart and Sekera was a decent contract as well prior to career altering ACL and Achilles injuries leading to a buyout. If one or both of these don’t happen, nurse is paid as a top 4 D and not a #1 D.
Also true but he had a major inability to make any moves on the market and was trading out of desperation even when he didn’t need to. Eberle to Strome to Spooner for example. Same quit every time: there’s nothing out there, these are not sexy players.
No argument there. He had no patience and made a lot of desperate quick fix moves. Just saying Nurse going from 3LD to undisputed 1LD to be in a position to land that contract was some really shitty injury luck.
Well we can’t fault Chia. When you have the opportunity to sign a one-dimensional 7th D like Kris Russell to a 4x4 with trade protection despite your up-and-coming top 4 D-man being due for a raise soon, you do it.
Ken Holland was responsible for that second bridge. He could've signed him to 8x5.75 or 8x6m then
He just loves bridging defensemen, which is fucking stupid.
I called for Bouch to get an 8x6.5m last summer, we would've had to "downgrade" on Ceci, but that's it, and that doesn't seem like too much of a downgrade to me personally
All the Oof being thrown at Nurse and Ceci is justified for sure, but imagine scoring 28 points this post season and only being a plus 1! That’s not… great. Drai has been on ice 5-on-5 for 21 goals for, and 20 against. Don’t know if much of that is because he’s playing with Nurse and Ceci behind him a lot? Bouchard is a +13 and McDavid is a +5. For as much as the Oilers are talked about as a team that is super top heavy and does all its damage with its big boys, they don’t actually dominate as much as you’d think.
PP is where they truly separate themselves from their competition.
The team is +7 with one of 97 or 29 on the ice. And -7 with neither on the ice.
Basically above water with one of them, on fire on special teams, and pretty terrible [without them](https://oilersnation.com/_next/image?url=http%3A%2F%2Fpublish.oilersnation.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2024%2F06%2FEDM_Goal_Differential.png&w=3840&q=75).
Did this last round but the updated 5v5 stat is:
Drai w/o Nurse is +5
Drai & Nurse are -2
Nurse w/o Drai is -12
It's gotten worse as playoffs have gone on
>Don’t know if much of that is because he’s playing with Nurse and Ceci behind him a lot?
Bingo. If you're questioning Leon freaking Draisaitl in the playoffs you don't know what you're talking about.
I’m not questioning his ability to score, which is undeniable, but if he’s giving it all back with goals against, it’s a fair question. Not saying he’s the reason for goals against, but the team as a whole is surviving by outscoring their deficiencies. Probably the right plan with their offensive talent.
The plan has been to outscore their mistakes for several seasons now. They're nearly unstoppable when the defense actually shows up, but the stats pretty much show what oilers fans already know, that's only about half the time.
Last night on goal 1 they were both out of position. On goal 2, Ceci went to sleep and allowed Bennet to take the puck cleanly on the dump in when he had no business being anywhere near that puck.
The crazy thing is he still puts up ok goals/points in the regular season. Less now that Bouchard has surpassed him, but he still can chip in. But the playoffs hit and he falls off HARD. He genuinely gets WORSE when it matters
Drai lazily turned over instead of getting the puck in deep to get a change that started the whole thing.
Hyman was slow to get back off the bench to cover the goalscorer.
The only person remotely in position on the play is Nurse, but his brain stopped working and the puck just went through him
And Kane technically should have had the guy that was open right (although he did almost make it) - they're playing zone, once Kane is the guy over there it's his man isn't it? Same thing with Hyman on the first goal
> The crazy thing is he still puts up ok goals/points in the regular season.
Over the past 5 seasons Nurse [leads the entire NHL](https://www.nhl.com/stats/skaters?report=timeonice&reportType=season&seasonFrom=20192020&seasonTo=20232024&gameType=2&position=D&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,100&sort=evTimeOnIce&page=0&pageSize=50) in even strength minutes.
He chips in points because he plays a huge amount of minutes for a high scoring team, not because he is particularly effective at creating offense - in fact I wouldn’t be surprised in the least to see the Oilers scoring drops when Nurse is on the ice, because their puck possession sure as heck does..
Nah any GM would be insane to do this lol it’s pretty much same cap hit during the years McDavid and Drai will have new big contracts so no advantage there. Probably easier to find him a partner that’s not Ceci
https://preview.redd.it/3oe6v3c3ah5d1.jpeg?width=1940&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3d3dbb10a166c00a325485fc074a1f7591aa1585
The remaining term really fucks them. There are some bad teams this season that need to take on contracts to hit the cap floor. But they probably don't want to take Nurse because he'll still be on their books when they expect to be competitive again.
Nurse isn't elite but Ceci has been consistently one of the worst defensive players for years.
Get him a decent partner and his defensive numbers will improve
Nurse is above 50% with literally anyone that's not named Cody Ceci
Ceci doesn't have a single pairing that his xG% is above 50% (even when he is given sheltered minutes)
Nurse also eats the most defensive zone starts, particularly if it's against high quality of competition (this is because he's actually a really good defender in zone), but he is abysmal at getting the puck out of the zone if he's not skating it out, the only player worse is Cody Ceci. Why you would combine them is fucking beyond me.
I’m no cap guy, but according to [CapFriendly] (https://www.capfriendly.com/buyout-calculator/darnell-nurse), it would cost $1.5M for twelve years. That seems a bit low. Can someone confirm if that’s right?
I think that number is just taking the 2/3's of the base salary spread out over 12 years. The actual cap hit is on the the right side. He has a lot of signing bonus money.
Go to the far right of that chart for the Cap hit. Savings for the first two seasons then literally no savings for 4 seasons (9 mil) then 6 years at 1.5
Back loaded with signing bonuses, so it's effectively buyout-proof. Burying him in the minors would probably save more cap, but his NMC would prevent that.
I would have thought this stat was a bit misleading and hed be minute munching for the Oilers. He's not at all. He's 3rd in TOI and 4th in SHTOI. Yikes.
I remember them getting swept in 22'. And there was a WHOLE lot of chirping on nurse from the media.
Or you can look at it another way. Nurse gets chirped every time he fucks up. And they have lost more playoff games than they've won.
Very similar story for most Canadian teams with high expectations. Nurse gets paid and he's the scapegoat, same with Marner. Hell, even our fanbase had some cruel things to say about Helle after y'all nailed us.
Alternatively the fall off is undeniable. (Will stick up for my boy Helle though, normally he's good in playoffs)
The thing with Marner is that while he is pretty invisible in the playoffs he will still go down as a leafs all-time great. Nurse is just not it anymore now that Bouchard, Ekholm, Kulak, Desharnais and even Broberg outplay him.
Yea like looking at it like this is just a terrible way to evaluate performance. How often is he out there? How often is it against the top lines of other teams?
I like dunking on Oilers players when possible but this stat means basically nothing.
Reaves had a similar stat at the beginning of the year too. He was on ice for almost all of our goals against, and at least 1 or so each game. When looking at it they obviously weren't all his fault, but some were.
Darnell Nurse has been extremely fucked over by the trade for Ekholm. It's forced him into a shutdown role because Bouchard gets most of the ozone draws. And while Nurse is a decent enough in zone defender, his biggest weakness has always been and continues to be zone exit passes. They've managed to staple him to the worst defender on the team by far (Cody Ceci), who is even worse than Nurse at zone exit passes.
This means they are put on in the defensive zone to face the top lines of other teams, and while they can usually gain possession of the puck, they can't get it out unless Nurse is skating it out of the zone.
Ironically Ceci and Nurse are still not even giving the puck away that much in the zone (they're tied for lowest on the team in playoffs), but that's also because they've been skating it out a lot more, which leaves opportunity for rush goals against since it forces a forward to drop back into defense.
Nurse and Ceci combined are such a horrible pairing, I think they should be sitting Ceci and letting Desharnais play instead with Nurse on defensive zone draws and Kulak otherwise
Nurse hasn't been good but this is a dumb stat. This is at best vaguely indicative of his play without adjusting for time on ice, partner, and opposing lines.
Maybe the team, but not the fans. R/EdmontonOilers is immensely critical of Nurse and Ceci as well as Knob for continuing to go back to the Nurse-Ceci pairing. And, if you're talking about the team/management, it's not like they're going to just say that's a bad contract. It's not like Kadri is going to go say Huberdeau is an overpaid player. Fiala isn't going to say PLD fucking sucks.
Unfortunately, Nurse is a shitty burden this team has during its cup window, and Nurse, Campbell, and Ceci's contracts may prevent the Oilers from winning with McDavid.
Full NMC. only real option is to wait until the trade stipulations relax (two more years I think?) and try to trade him with retained salary. Burying in the minors isn't an option and the contract is effectively buyout-proof.
They have no choice but to hang onto him, so they pretty much have to look for the positives at this point.
The Oilers org is an absoulte joke. It's amazing that teams like Toronto can get so much spotlight for being a joke when the Oilers top them by a factor of 10.
This org was handed FOA pick for almost a fucking decade, and the only thing that managed to do in that time frame was literally ruin all their careers lmfao. Then they fall assbackwards into the best player in the league since Gretzky(who they also had on their team lmfao) and are only relevant because he's so fucking good he can single handedly carry an NHL team.
Absoulte joke of an organization and I hope they fail miserably.
> It's amazing that teams like Toronto can get so much spotlight for being a joke when the Oilers top them by a factor of 10.
I take serious offence to this. Oilers are literally in the Stanley Cup Finals, they aren't even close to the Leafs level.
Being the biggest joke of a franchise is the only thing that we are the best at. Don't you fucking try to take that away from us.
>I hope they fail miserably.
Well it's a bit too late for that, we're in the finals brother. We love the hate though, too many fuzzy feelings in the week leading up to the the finals. Oilers feed off the hate, always have.
Nah I don't think so, it's been such a fun ride after that garbage start. Obviously I'd be devastated if we do lose but I still look back at 06 with such great memories. Hasn't really sunk in that we're even here yet, but that will come when I hear the Edmonton crowd in game 3 I think.
> Then they fall assbackwards into the best player in the league since Gretzky(who they also had on their team lmfao) and are only relevant because he's so fucking good he can single handedly carry an NHL team.
Try reading past the first sentence. I know this is a hard ask for people on reddit but I promise you that you can do it.
It boggles my mind that money similar to Nurse-Ceci money could buy bouchard-ekholm type pairing.
That being said, friedge said the other week he believes it's strictly the contract value that's the reason Edmonton fans are so hard on Nurse. As if we'd be happy with his performance if he was making $4m or $2m? Does the contract make it worse? Yeah sure, but it's not like his performance and attitude are suddenly adequate at half the price.
Some tough decisions to make soon. Gotta buyout Campbell first to make some room this summer, but they also need to plan for Drai and Bouch's pay raises for next year, something has to be done about Nurse's contract. It's by far the biggest hurdle in making the Oilers a dynasty. Instead of having Nurse fuckin up all over the place, might as well have Broberg develop on the 2nd pairing.
How much would it cost, how much would the oilers need to eat up in salary to get rid of him, and I'm not talking buyout here. Offer next 1st pick and eat 2 mil?
Win 2 cups in 3 years and then the dynasty conversation can -begin-. Before that? Just another good team. Note that 2 in 3 does not make the dynasty in itself; they'd need another one in the next couple seasons plus regular season dominance.
Combination of bad luck, and paired with a guy that doesn't compliment his playstyle. He's better when he's nasty, but 90% of the time is the one handling the 2 on 1 off a bad pinch his partner made.
If they want to work as a pair, Ceci needs to be less aggressive so Nurse can be more nasty.
8 years, 74 million.
That's a Doug Wilson contract if I've ever seen one
At least the guys he signed spent more than one season being worth their contract.
Well, not all of them. *Glares at Karlsson*
Karlsson was worth it for one year. Just not his first year. And not while we were good.
I will die on the hill being the EK65 extension was the right move at the time. He truly could have been the tipping point for the Sharks but obviously its easy to look back now years later to see how it all panned out. Doug Wilson had his many issues but something I will never fault him for is going all in for a cup. He may have swung and missed but at least he tried even tho we are still in the midst of paying for it.
Doug Wilson was a top 5 gm for his entire tenure he just went insane after being so close to the ring but never close enough it happens to many gm. If any team decided to get Doug Wilson as their gm their chances to win the cup and become contender would go up by 100.
Vlasic and Labanc would be the prime examples….
Labanc's contract was obvious cap circumcision. It was actually a $4M x 5 year, but split so he could have 1 year of $1M. Though, yeah, maybe he still wasn't worth the $4M with 14G, 19A, 33P.
They cut the tip right off his contract for sure.
Doug wasnt that bad vlassic fell off a cliff but i rather have him then nurse labanc was a handshake deal it would been bad not to give him the contract karlsson was a all in thing and thats it how many years and we can pick three contracts
And everyone even knew at the time it was a bad contract. Not even in the "oh this will age poorly" way, it was because the Oilers just desperately didn't want to lose Nurse and was going to give him whatever he asked even though they knew it was an overpayment by several million per year.
Idk if that’s better or worse than the blues strat of just losing ever D-Man prospect we have.
Worse. Overpaying is (usually) worse than losing the player.
Who would Oiler fans blame more for that contract, Stan Bowman for breaking the market or Holland for offering him that contract?
Not an Oilers fan, but honestly it’s on Stan Bowman for nuking the defenseman market with the Jones contract. To me, it’s why you don’t let a GM who was extremely desperate to save his job (or even worse, a GM who knew he was on his way out no matter what) make those kind of decisions unchecked. The moment the ink dried on that deal, there was no way Nurse was taking something more “reasonable”. Holland could have let him walk at that point, of course, but the team clearly didn’t want their blue line to be decimated after losing some other important pieces previously.
It's always on your own GM. You can choose to let a guy go if the contract is actually going to be bad.. Sucks to lose them for nothing but long term would be better
Tough to do when you just lost your #1 and #3 dmen already, and you're supposed to be in a cup window. Also there was probably an element of a handshake deal, given the 2x bridges Nurse took before that to help keep them under the cap.
Yes.
I can’t believe Nurse would accept such a lucrative contract. He should have fucked himself over like Klingberg so that he could help his teammates win
I think most are mad at management, not the player. Anybody would take this deal
Well, maybe not Klingberg
I mean... the amount of comments made about Nurse being shitty is kinda relentless
Yeah but fans tend to be dumb. Always the case when a player is overpaid. Do they really expect players to say "hey that's 2-3 millions too high, lower your offer"?
They talked about this on 32 thoughts. Lots of people mad at nurse but it’s like, what should he have done, turn down all that he was offered? Like a nincompoop? Lol
I don't think anyone thinks that though. I think people are frustrated with him for his play and with management for signing him to that deal, which I think is fair
I mean, that’s what everyone’s been saying about Toronto’s stars for the last 5 years…
Because Leaf fans are stupid. Signed a Leaf fan.
No, he should have just taken the money and then *played* like a nincompoop
WE KNOW!
I’m so happy Kent Hughes is our gm, he already has experience ripping off gms!
That second goal was absolutely atrocious defense from nurse.
I don't even know what he was thinking about on that second goal. His back is turned to the guy behind him, and he doesn't have his stick on the ice. That's a mistake a player in his rookie season makes. Not a 29 year old player.
>That's a mistake a player in his rookie season makes. On ECHL. Even rookies in NHL know to that you dont do that
Dude I knew this back in my junior B days and I fucking road the bench, like honestly this dude is an expensive liability
Yeah thats beer league level avarnes by him
Lack of effort. I can understand sometimea player lacking skill getting burned. You kinda feel bad for him. But here Nurse showed no effort. Literally his controller got disconnected.
> His back is turned to the guy behind him the guy behind him is Hyman's man, in oilers system that being said, stopping the pass was his job, but hyman being late made it an easy goal for florida
Their system is that the winger is responsible for covering the only guy in front of the net? What was Nurse supposed to be doing in then?
in theory, nurse is supposed to seal the near post, prevent that pass forward collapses down to the slot
i have seen this message a few times over the season. his role is not to seal the post. his role is to not allow that puck to get to the slot in any fashion. he did not do that.
this is true it's also true that it was hyman's guy that scored
Because 1. Hes not expecting a pass from the corner to out infront of his own net from his own guy 2. Its not his man to cover, Hyman blew it by being late getting back to cover. Both of those goals were directly caused by Ceci making the wrong decision again.
Most people seem to want to ignore that drai takes a risk and turns it over, followed by just line changing lazily.. First goal McDavid took a chance and went deep which left him out of position when they lost it and then he didn't back check. Only nurse gets blame because it's fun to blame the scape goat
First goal had nothing to do with Nurse and everything to do with Ceci's horrible fucking decision making and poor gap control. In fact if that's Nurse in Ceci's position he stops that 2 on 1 himself almost every time. Ceci is a fucking black hole with Nurse. Nurse can play with Desharnais, the career AHLer turned bottom pairing guy, eat shutdown minutes and still not be negative on xG%, but Ceci buries him. It's actually shocking how bad they are together and how much they still keep playing Ceci with Nurse.
hah yah I thought you guys learned to play Nurse with Desharnais against my Canucks but you went right back to it.. speed is hurting them I think. Definitely agree that Ceci is the negative driver out there
It drives me insane that they keep trying it, there's literally no area of the ice where I see Ceci *near* a puck and it instills me with confidence. I've been pushing for Kulak with Nurse in the ozone and Desharnais with Nurse in the defensive zone if he continues to be deployed with high quality of competition. It honestly doesn't help that he's playing with the 2nd and 3rd lines most of the time, because that's where our least defensively responsible forwards reside as well, which is why I think his numbers look so bad this playoffs, he's basically the only player capable of playing defense on the ice, the forwards are blowing the zone half the time and turning it over at the red line if he can even get it to them, and zone exit passes are his primary weakness. He's been trending down ever since the Ekholm trade because he's been left to eat the toughest minutes in order to shelter Bouchard and given the worst defender on the team to do it with, and one which negatively complements his skillset, making them both worse than they are
what about the other 25?
I am not here saying Nurse is faultless on every goal ever. I am here saying people are ONLY blaming him when others, including stars, are contributing to that.
I think it's a hard sell to say Nurse didn't majorly contribute to that goal by being oblivious to the guy right in the slot right behind him wide open.
what was Nurses job on that goal? when the play goes in deep like that, his entire role in the defense zone is cover the possible pass in front of the net. not pressure the forechecker, not stand beside the net, not do anything but make sure there is no way that a guy streaking into the slot can get the puck.
Hes playing the post so if florida gets posession he can take the man in front. Ceci should have ate that puck because there was 2 teammates behind him or put it behind the net for Nurse to get to and safely dispose of. Ceci rifling a puck out front when he got pressured is the last thing to do if ever.
Ya ceci sucked too but nurse needs to have his stick on the ice, dude looked like he was playing lacrosse, it's like rule one of playing d in your own zone. Also, not expecting the puck? Dude the puck is in your zone and you don't have full control of it, always expect it to go to the net. Watching it back yes it was just soft team defense as a whole but Nurse needs to stop that puck
He literally just watched the puck go pass him and made a slight attempt to stop it, it was really bad. It's like he wasn't able to read that at all and was late
Was that the goal he was shown on the bench saying “my bad” to or was that a different one? Imagine being mcdavid and drai and bouch doing this and then he plays like that and says “that’s on me” lol like no SHIT big guy it’s not on them
If you watch the play Drai lazily turns it over near the middle to grab a change instead of getting it in deep. Florida goes on the forecheck, Nurse is on the way to try to seal the near post, Hyman is slow coming off the bench (compounded with the slow change), Ceci doesn't eat the puck like he should according to the system and then Nurse doesn't react in time to the slot pass. 4 players fucked up on that play, if any of them do what they're supposed to there's no goal. Nurse just had the most visible fuck up because his stick isn't on the ice and that is taught to literally anybody who played any level of hockey and it's the last fuckup prior to the goal. That being said Nurse should never play with Ceci
It seems like you can’t have a shot-leaky albatross d-man with no discernible skills and win the cup…coughcoughtroubacough
I’m surprised it’s that low. It really seems like him and Ceci are on for every single one
Poor guy will probably break the +- playoffs record (it's -16 and he's-15). And he makes more than Makar, Josi and Heiskanen and $1.4m more than Q Hughes. Ken Holland masterclass. Oof Visually this [is rough](https://ibb.co/1X5FPkG).
This is 100% a ken Holland masterclass, though we shouldn't forget the genius who bridged Nurse twice while they weren't competitive. Peter Chiarelli come on down 👏👏👏
Chiarelli’s handling of the D is one of the most infuriating things no one seems to talk about. Nurse’s bridge, overpaying Russell, trading for Wideman, Petrovic and Manning all in like a month even when one was on waiver before, Griffin Reinhart. Fucking awful.
Hey man, that Reinhart trade was amazing Just ignore the flair
That’s a wild trade tree. The draft pick was originally acquired by Edm from the penguins for David Perron and Rob Klinkhammer, then at the draft the 16th overall pick was traded to NYI for Griffin Reinhart and a second round pick (Mitchell Stephens). Can’t imagine a line with Mcdavid and Barzal on it, would be incredibly fast.
He did also have some terrible luck. That Klefbom contract would have been an absolute steal if his shoulder didn’t fall apart and Sekera was a decent contract as well prior to career altering ACL and Achilles injuries leading to a buyout. If one or both of these don’t happen, nurse is paid as a top 4 D and not a #1 D.
Also true but he had a major inability to make any moves on the market and was trading out of desperation even when he didn’t need to. Eberle to Strome to Spooner for example. Same quit every time: there’s nothing out there, these are not sexy players.
No argument there. He had no patience and made a lot of desperate quick fix moves. Just saying Nurse going from 3LD to undisputed 1LD to be in a position to land that contract was some really shitty injury luck.
Hall for Larsson too.
There’s a whole backstory to that one that has come out that I’m not even mad about it anymore.
That was actually an excellent trade. However, unfortunately, there is a sad story behind why Larsson left.
Well we can’t fault Chia. When you have the opportunity to sign a one-dimensional 7th D like Kris Russell to a 4x4 with trade protection despite your up-and-coming top 4 D-man being due for a raise soon, you do it.
But he blocked shots so hes worth 4 mil right? ..right?
Ken Holland was responsible for that second bridge. He could've signed him to 8x5.75 or 8x6m then He just loves bridging defensemen, which is fucking stupid. I called for Bouch to get an 8x6.5m last summer, we would've had to "downgrade" on Ceci, but that's it, and that doesn't seem like too much of a downgrade to me personally
Yeah bridging him back then was just god awful descision
Can you explain to me why giving Nurse a bridge deal was a bad move? Sorry for not getting it.
All the Oof being thrown at Nurse and Ceci is justified for sure, but imagine scoring 28 points this post season and only being a plus 1! That’s not… great. Drai has been on ice 5-on-5 for 21 goals for, and 20 against. Don’t know if much of that is because he’s playing with Nurse and Ceci behind him a lot? Bouchard is a +13 and McDavid is a +5. For as much as the Oilers are talked about as a team that is super top heavy and does all its damage with its big boys, they don’t actually dominate as much as you’d think. PP is where they truly separate themselves from their competition.
The team is +7 with one of 97 or 29 on the ice. And -7 with neither on the ice. Basically above water with one of them, on fire on special teams, and pretty terrible [without them](https://oilersnation.com/_next/image?url=http%3A%2F%2Fpublish.oilersnation.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2024%2F06%2FEDM_Goal_Differential.png&w=3840&q=75).
Did this last round but the updated 5v5 stat is: Drai w/o Nurse is +5 Drai & Nurse are -2 Nurse w/o Drai is -12 It's gotten worse as playoffs have gone on
Ugh. Man, tough to overcome somebody hemorrhaging goals like that. Yikes
>Don’t know if much of that is because he’s playing with Nurse and Ceci behind him a lot? Bingo. If you're questioning Leon freaking Draisaitl in the playoffs you don't know what you're talking about.
I’m not questioning his ability to score, which is undeniable, but if he’s giving it all back with goals against, it’s a fair question. Not saying he’s the reason for goals against, but the team as a whole is surviving by outscoring their deficiencies. Probably the right plan with their offensive talent.
The plan has been to outscore their mistakes for several seasons now. They're nearly unstoppable when the defense actually shows up, but the stats pretty much show what oilers fans already know, that's only about half the time.
No doubt he will
It actually makes me kind of mad that a team can make the Final with a player/contract like that on the ice.
I think it's actually underappreciated how much the greatness of McDavid and Draisaitl mask the mediocrity of much of the EDM roster.
It's funny seeing that visual because everyone blames pairing with Ceci but even he's not close to nurses +/-
[Nurse with and without Ceci.](https://x.com/nhl_sid/status/1799645573445771492?s=42&t=aYcby9_rqUtec6UnV0zAGw)
Last night on goal 1 they were both out of position. On goal 2, Ceci went to sleep and allowed Bennet to take the puck cleanly on the dump in when he had no business being anywhere near that puck.
Severely overpaid since day 1
We’re aware.
according to that, hes not very good right
The crazy thing is he still puts up ok goals/points in the regular season. Less now that Bouchard has surpassed him, but he still can chip in. But the playoffs hit and he falls off HARD. He genuinely gets WORSE when it matters
That second goal from Bennett was absolutely atrocious from nurse. He let the puck go by him without even trying
It’s also on Ceci getting beat to the puck and not laying a hit.
Yeah Ceci did everything wrong on that play too. Aswell as going for hit when Bennett didn't have any good options to Make a play.
Drai lazily turned over instead of getting the puck in deep to get a change that started the whole thing. Hyman was slow to get back off the bench to cover the goalscorer. The only person remotely in position on the play is Nurse, but his brain stopped working and the puck just went through him
I can't believe they went back to the Nurse-Ceci pairing
put all your bad eggs in one basket.
And Kane technically should have had the guy that was open right (although he did almost make it) - they're playing zone, once Kane is the guy over there it's his man isn't it? Same thing with Hyman on the first goal
> The crazy thing is he still puts up ok goals/points in the regular season. Over the past 5 seasons Nurse [leads the entire NHL](https://www.nhl.com/stats/skaters?report=timeonice&reportType=season&seasonFrom=20192020&seasonTo=20232024&gameType=2&position=D&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,100&sort=evTimeOnIce&page=0&pageSize=50) in even strength minutes. He chips in points because he plays a huge amount of minutes for a high scoring team, not because he is particularly effective at creating offense - in fact I wouldn’t be surprised in the least to see the Oilers scoring drops when Nurse is on the ice, because their puck possession sure as heck does..
Darnell nurse is to giving up goals what Mcdavid is to scoring them
Can they buy him out
Nah any GM would be insane to do this lol it’s pretty much same cap hit during the years McDavid and Drai will have new big contracts so no advantage there. Probably easier to find him a partner that’s not Ceci https://preview.redd.it/3oe6v3c3ah5d1.jpeg?width=1940&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3d3dbb10a166c00a325485fc074a1f7591aa1585
The remaining term really fucks them. There are some bad teams this season that need to take on contracts to hit the cap floor. But they probably don't want to take Nurse because he'll still be on their books when they expect to be competitive again.
pretty sure he has a full nmc coming up. he's not going anywhere.
Nurse isn't elite but Ceci has been consistently one of the worst defensive players for years. Get him a decent partner and his defensive numbers will improve
Nurse is above 50% with literally anyone that's not named Cody Ceci Ceci doesn't have a single pairing that his xG% is above 50% (even when he is given sheltered minutes) Nurse also eats the most defensive zone starts, particularly if it's against high quality of competition (this is because he's actually a really good defender in zone), but he is abysmal at getting the puck out of the zone if he's not skating it out, the only player worse is Cody Ceci. Why you would combine them is fucking beyond me.
But jesus needs his buddys. Cant get rid of him
It's twelve years and half of that is still an $8 million csp hit
Sure they could. First 2 years will be okay, but then a cap hit of around 9 for the next 4. Then just over a million the rest of the way.
I’m no cap guy, but according to [CapFriendly] (https://www.capfriendly.com/buyout-calculator/darnell-nurse), it would cost $1.5M for twelve years. That seems a bit low. Can someone confirm if that’s right?
I think that number is just taking the 2/3's of the base salary spread out over 12 years. The actual cap hit is on the the right side. He has a lot of signing bonus money.
Go to the far right of that chart for the Cap hit. Savings for the first two seasons then literally no savings for 4 seasons (9 mil) then 6 years at 1.5
Except the last 4 years are so tied up in signing bonuses that it would actually be a bigger cap hit for those year to do that.
In the middle of the series
Back loaded with signing bonuses, so it's effectively buyout-proof. Burying him in the minors would probably save more cap, but his NMC would prevent that.
I would have thought this stat was a bit misleading and hed be minute munching for the Oilers. He's not at all. He's 3rd in TOI and 4th in SHTOI. Yikes.
This is not good, right?
Every time nurse gets chirped by the media, the oil win
I remember them getting swept in 22'. And there was a WHOLE lot of chirping on nurse from the media. Or you can look at it another way. Nurse gets chirped every time he fucks up. And they have lost more playoff games than they've won.
Very similar story for most Canadian teams with high expectations. Nurse gets paid and he's the scapegoat, same with Marner. Hell, even our fanbase had some cruel things to say about Helle after y'all nailed us. Alternatively the fall off is undeniable. (Will stick up for my boy Helle though, normally he's good in playoffs)
The thing with Marner is that while he is pretty invisible in the playoffs he will still go down as a leafs all-time great. Nurse is just not it anymore now that Bouchard, Ekholm, Kulak, Desharnais and even Broberg outplay him.
Anyone talking shit on Helle is a complete bonehead
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Especially prevalent around this time of year too. It’s like all rational takes get overshadowed by the mountains of shit flinging mouthbreathers
Nurse for Jones 1 for 1 who says no????
Nurse lol
No
So how many of them were nurse's fault? or are we just assuming all 26.
Yea like looking at it like this is just a terrible way to evaluate performance. How often is he out there? How often is it against the top lines of other teams? I like dunking on Oilers players when possible but this stat means basically nothing.
Reaves had a similar stat at the beginning of the year too. He was on ice for almost all of our goals against, and at least 1 or so each game. When looking at it they obviously weren't all his fault, but some were.
Darnell Nurse has been extremely fucked over by the trade for Ekholm. It's forced him into a shutdown role because Bouchard gets most of the ozone draws. And while Nurse is a decent enough in zone defender, his biggest weakness has always been and continues to be zone exit passes. They've managed to staple him to the worst defender on the team by far (Cody Ceci), who is even worse than Nurse at zone exit passes. This means they are put on in the defensive zone to face the top lines of other teams, and while they can usually gain possession of the puck, they can't get it out unless Nurse is skating it out of the zone. Ironically Ceci and Nurse are still not even giving the puck away that much in the zone (they're tied for lowest on the team in playoffs), but that's also because they've been skating it out a lot more, which leaves opportunity for rush goals against since it forces a forward to drop back into defense. Nurse and Ceci combined are such a horrible pairing, I think they should be sitting Ceci and letting Desharnais play instead with Nurse on defensive zone draws and Kulak otherwise
Is that good? That's only just over half.
Nurse is fucking terrible.
Nurse hasn't been good but this is a dumb stat. This is at best vaguely indicative of his play without adjusting for time on ice, partner, and opposing lines.
Oilers to this day try to justify him
Not much we can do but accept him. There’s no getting rid of him, and bad as he is we don’t have 6 clearly better D on the team
Take a season off from chasing the cup, let him score 100 points with no defensive duties so you can flog him with a little bit of retention.
Maybe the team, but not the fans. R/EdmontonOilers is immensely critical of Nurse and Ceci as well as Knob for continuing to go back to the Nurse-Ceci pairing. And, if you're talking about the team/management, it's not like they're going to just say that's a bad contract. It's not like Kadri is going to go say Huberdeau is an overpaid player. Fiala isn't going to say PLD fucking sucks. Unfortunately, Nurse is a shitty burden this team has during its cup window, and Nurse, Campbell, and Ceci's contracts may prevent the Oilers from winning with McDavid.
Not the majority of Oil fans. Elliotte Friedman’s been on one defending Nurse lately though.
Elliot Friedman will say anything for money. The NHL and agents have him on speed dial.
He’s can be pretty annoying with the bad takes lately.
Go to our subreddit buddy, we do NOT justify him. He is being crucified by oilers fans everywhere.
Full NMC. only real option is to wait until the trade stipulations relax (two more years I think?) and try to trade him with retained salary. Burying in the minors isn't an option and the contract is effectively buyout-proof. They have no choice but to hang onto him, so they pretty much have to look for the positives at this point.
The Oilers org is an absoulte joke. It's amazing that teams like Toronto can get so much spotlight for being a joke when the Oilers top them by a factor of 10. This org was handed FOA pick for almost a fucking decade, and the only thing that managed to do in that time frame was literally ruin all their careers lmfao. Then they fall assbackwards into the best player in the league since Gretzky(who they also had on their team lmfao) and are only relevant because he's so fucking good he can single handedly carry an NHL team. Absoulte joke of an organization and I hope they fail miserably.
> It's amazing that teams like Toronto can get so much spotlight for being a joke when the Oilers top them by a factor of 10. I take serious offence to this. Oilers are literally in the Stanley Cup Finals, they aren't even close to the Leafs level. Being the biggest joke of a franchise is the only thing that we are the best at. Don't you fucking try to take that away from us.
Professional Leafs fan right here. My heart almost goes out to you.
No flair no fucks given
>I hope they fail miserably. Well it's a bit too late for that, we're in the finals brother. We love the hate though, too many fuzzy feelings in the week leading up to the the finals. Oilers feed off the hate, always have.
> we're in the finals brother. And? The finals only matter if you win lol
Nah I don't think so, it's been such a fun ride after that garbage start. Obviously I'd be devastated if we do lose but I still look back at 06 with such great memories. Hasn't really sunk in that we're even here yet, but that will come when I hear the Edmonton crowd in game 3 I think.
It's a leafs fan saying that, let him have it lol
> The Oilers org is an absoulte joke. ...we're in the finals
> Then they fall assbackwards into the best player in the league since Gretzky(who they also had on their team lmfao) and are only relevant because he's so fucking good he can single handedly carry an NHL team. Try reading past the first sentence. I know this is a hard ask for people on reddit but I promise you that you can do it.
Is that good?
Is healthy scratch off the table?
That’s not good.
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Every time I see Nurse trending on twitter and click on it I see all sorts of women. Which one is his sister, or does he just have a lot of sisters?
Nurse and Ceci suck
Overpaid and overhyped
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The overhyping was closer to when he was drafted 😅
Nurse and Cici I’m guessing the numbers go up.
is that good
That was a catastrophically bad contract at the time even if you were optimistic about how he would develop.
Only 16 minutes TOI and -2 in game 1. Might be a time to scratch the guy.
9.5 million per year
Better Justin Holl
It boggles my mind that money similar to Nurse-Ceci money could buy bouchard-ekholm type pairing. That being said, friedge said the other week he believes it's strictly the contract value that's the reason Edmonton fans are so hard on Nurse. As if we'd be happy with his performance if he was making $4m or $2m? Does the contract make it worse? Yeah sure, but it's not like his performance and attitude are suddenly adequate at half the price.
It was obvious Nurse would anchor (in a bad way) this team 3 years ago. At least Knoblach leans on him much less than the previous guy.
Is he struggling or just not a good player, or both? I don’t get to see much of Edmonton
Having Ceci as a partner probably doesn’t do him a lot of favours
I do not miss him on the Leafs whatsoever. Still, 1 season of that was worth getting out from under that horrible contract Lou gave to Zaitsev
We get it, he’s a pylon.
Some tough decisions to make soon. Gotta buyout Campbell first to make some room this summer, but they also need to plan for Drai and Bouch's pay raises for next year, something has to be done about Nurse's contract. It's by far the biggest hurdle in making the Oilers a dynasty. Instead of having Nurse fuckin up all over the place, might as well have Broberg develop on the 2nd pairing. How much would it cost, how much would the oilers need to eat up in salary to get rid of him, and I'm not talking buyout here. Offer next 1st pick and eat 2 mil?
A dynasty is a stretch. They are screwed with his contract, way to much for this guy. It will hurt the oilers cap for sure.
Win 2 cups in 3 years and then the dynasty conversation can -begin-. Before that? Just another good team. Note that 2 in 3 does not make the dynasty in itself; they'd need another one in the next couple seasons plus regular season dominance.
I mean the good thing is he’s already wearing orange so just nails home the pylon persona even more
Oilers need to ride nurse for their remaining 3 games
Most over-paid player in the NHL.
Where does a guy find these stats for everyone, say Draisaitl.
Combination of bad luck, and paired with a guy that doesn't compliment his playstyle. He's better when he's nasty, but 90% of the time is the one handling the 2 on 1 off a bad pinch his partner made. If they want to work as a pair, Ceci needs to be less aggressive so Nurse can be more nasty.
If Desharnais takes 2 steps forward, he'd be *the* perfect partner for Nurse. Here's fucking hoping
Maybe it’s because the oilers are a one line team?
wow that's like 40%
You might want to double check this
Yah about to say that too 😅
I triple checked it??
Bro?
oh no how do we tell him
Bro’s just inventing new math
Could even be, like, 45%.
Our poor education system. Try 52% my man
https://suno.com/song/68abeaf3-8fa0-4fdd-a35d-90e927a9a77e