Three weeks after the news broke that defenceman Darnell Nurse requested a trade from the Edmonton Oilers, the team pulled the trigger on a deal, sending the 11-year veteran to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for defenceman Shakir Mukhamadullin and Zack Sharp.
An end of an era for the Oilers and Nurse
Nurse has spent his entire career with the Oilers after being drafted by the team with the 7th overall pick in the 2013 NHL entry draft.
From the beginning, Nurse was looked at as a key piece of the future and was considered a part of the team’s core, along with Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, including being named an assistant captain in 2019.
Nurse played 798 games for the team, the seventh most in team history, scoring 88 goals and 324 points. That was the 5th most points by a defender in an Oiler uniform, and the second most goals from the blueline for the franchise.
Nurse’s career peaked in 2020-21, when he scored a career-high 16 goals in just 56 games. However, that performance is what led to his eventual departure from the team, as he was rewarded with an 8-year contract worth $9.25 million a year. Nurse never lived up to that contract, resulting in him becoming a favourite scapegoat of Oilers’ fans.
With the Oilers up against the salary cap and having Evan Bouchard, Mattias Ekholm, Jake Walman and newly-signed Connor Murphy in the fold, Nurse and his contract just could not fit on the team anymore.
With Nurse’s no-movement-clause, he was in charge of where the team could trade him. There were only a few teams he was willing to go to, limiting the team’s ability to trade him. However, things changed this morning, with Nurse agreeing to expand his list, and just an hour or so later, he was dealt.
A surprisingly good return?
Prior to this deal, if you asked almost anyone what return the Oilers could be looking at, you would be told the Oilers would have to pay a heavy price just to get out of the contract, let alone expect any kind of valuable return.
General Manager Stan Bowman showed that kind of prediction had no merit, acquiring the 24-year-old former first-round pick Mukhamadullin.
Mukhamadullin has played 83 NHL games in his career, the bulk of which came last year when he played 50 games, scoring 5 goals and 12 points. While he likely cannot be expected to fill the second-pairing ice-time hole left by Nurse, he certainly should be an everyday NHL player next year and has the potential to be that second-pairing player.
The Oilers also acquired another left defence prospect in Zack Sharp. Sharp was a fourth-round pick in 2025 and has spent the last two seasons playing for Western Michigan University (along with Owen Michaels, whom the Oilers signed this past spring). This past year, he scored 5 goals and 19 points in 37 games.
The biggest part of the return is arguably the cap space, with the team freeing up $9.25 million. The team now has over $16.5 million in cap space with 6 players left to sign. One of those includes the newly acquired Mukhamadullin, a restricted free agent who earned $1 million last year. What his new contract will look like is uncertain at this time, but it is likely fair to say it will not be anywhere near $9.25 million.
Overall, this certainly qualifies as a hockey trade, and in light of a trade request with limited available trading partners, one has to chalk this up as an absolute win by the Oilers.
How is Oil Country feeling about this move? Let us know in the comments!
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