The Edmonton Oilers have been a frustrating watch coming out of the Olympic break. They’ve scored 19 goals in three games, and somehow lost two of them, one a 6–5 decision to Anaheim, and a 5–4 loss to San Jose.
Partly to blame for these losses has been the goaltending, which hasn’t been good enough. Another reason has been the defence. The pairing of Darnell Nurse and Jake Walman continue to be, to put it lightly, a tough watch. With the NHL’s trade deadline just six days away, it’s expected Edmonton will target a defenceman to fix this issue and shake up the pairings, but if we look at the bigger picture, is it time to question Darnell Nurse’s spot on Edmonton’s roster? Let’s explore the possibility.
Nurse’s current contract
Any conversation about Nurse, for better or worse, needs to begin with his contract. Signed in August 2021 after two consecutive bridge deals, the eight-year, $74M deal was the going rate for a player of Nurse’s calibre. Seth Jones had just reset the defenceman market with an eight-year, $76M contract (signed by then-Chicago, now Edmonton GM Stan Bowman). Coming off a career high 16-goal season, it seemed like Nurse had finally unlocked both the offensive and defensive sides of his game that were so highly touted as he entered the NHL.
Unfortunately for Nurse, this contract was a blessing personally, but a curse professionally. With Colorado’s Cale Makar and Columbus’s Zach Werenski also signing similar contracts around that time, Nurse was held to their standard of play. Nurse is a good player, but he’s not Makar or Werenski, and as more and more defencemen like Quinn Hughes, Rasmus Dahlin, and even Edmonton’s Evan Bouchard began to sign contracts around the $9M+ mark, Nurse’s comparables become loftier and loftier. He was never able to truly reach the level of play desired from a $9M defenceman, one of the main reasons the Oilers traded for Mattias Ekholm to solidify the 1LD position in 2023.
Nurse was never able to truly be the anchor on his own defensive pairing. Aside from his stretch with Ethan Bear, players like Adam Larsson, Troy Stetcher, and Cody Ceci had to be the stabilizer for #25 (Ceci to varying results). Rightly or wrongly, the NHL exists in a cap world, and your performance in relation to your contract is critical, especially on a contender. Nurse didn’t ask to be compared to Makar, Hughes, or Dahlin, but when you sign that kind of deal, it comes with the money.
How it affects Edmonton’s cap
The Oilers have always spent to the cap in the Connor McDavid-Leon Draisaitl era, and for the large part, their big money star contracts have paid off. McDavid at $12.5M might be the best bargain in sports, Draisaitl at $8.5M was the best value in the league, and even with his $14M deal he’s worth it. Evan Bouchard has earned every penny of his $10.5M deal. Even Edmonton’s mid-tier deals like Zach Hyman at $5.5M, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins at $5.125M, and Ekholm at $6M have all paid off.
Nurse is the only big money contract the Oilers have signed in the core that hasn’t worked to the level they hoped. Now this is partially Edmonton’s fault. They had two chances to sign Nurse before they walked him to UFA status, but chose to bridge him twice. If they signed him to a $5.5M deal in 2020, this isn’t an issue.
But Nurse’s production and performance are also to blame. Eventually, when the rubber hits the road the player needs to step up and show they deserve that money. Nurse has done so too inconsistently. More importantly for Edmonton’s current situation, with Jake Walman’s seven-year, $49M deal due to kick in next season, the Oilers will be spending a combined $16.25M on their second pair. That’s not effective spending in a cap world.
Possible solutions to their defensive issues
Darnell Nurse is 31 years old. He’s played 777 NHL games. To hope he could magically level up his game to match the $9.25M AAV is fantasy. He is what he is: a good offensive defenceman who too often has critical defensive lapses that hurt his team. The way I see it, Edmonton has two options to fix the issues presented by Nurse’s current level of play.
Move down to the third line with Emberson
Is it ideal to have a $9.25M third-line defenceman? No. However, anything is better than having the Nurse-Walman pairing continue to play.
A 5v5 rating of 46.78% xGF is untenable. For reference, in 2023–24 the Nurse-Ceci paring posted a 52.19 xGF at 5v5 in the regular season, and only fell apart in the playoffs. The best solution I see is Nurse sliding to 3LD to play alongside Ty Emberson, and the Oilers finding someone to play 2RD with Walman at the deadline.
This would slide Spencer Statsney out of the lineup, but that’s a pretty solid seventh defenceman to have. Considering Emberson’s defence-first style, he could pair well with Nurse, who’s more prone to jumping up offensively.
An incoming trade (but not now)
To start, Nurse has an NMC on his contract. It’s unlikely he would waive it to leave a contender in Edmonton and the ability to play with his friends. However, it seems that Edmonton came to him last summer and at least posed the question of him waiving. What kind of value would Nurse have in a trade? I’m unsure. Seth Jones would probably be the best comparable, and he got the Chicago Blackhawks a first rounder and goalie Spencer Knight, in exchange for Jones and a fourth rounder.
Would the decision to put him at 3LD and essentially have Walman replace his spot upset Nurse enough to okay a deal out of town? Also unsure. But he’s the last big contract the Oilers can move without touching one of their stars.
Nurse’s contract is also buyout-proof.
Four years of a cap hit exceeding $7.7M, including two years above $8.5M. No thanks. A trade would be the only way Nurse’s time with the Oilers ends before his deal is up.
Ultimately, the Oilers need to make a decision on Nurse. He makes too much money and is too important to the core to bench, but he can’t keep up his current level of play. A move down the lineup against lesser competition seems to be the best option, and maybe that changes his mind about things. Either way, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Edmonton has a Darnell Nurse problem that they’ll need to solve, and sooner rather than later.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
