Darnell Nurse’s 12-year run as an Edmonton Oiler came to an end on Wednesday. The organization traded the veteran defenceman to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for Shakir Mukhamadullin and the rights to Zachary Sharp.
The 31-year-old was drafted seventh overall by Edmonton in 2013 and never played a game for another NHL franchise. Nurse waived his no-movement clause to make the deal happen after both sides agreed it was time to part ways.
Nurse addressed the media for the first time as a San Jose Shark this week. While the defenceman was careful to keep his focus on the road ahead, he offered candid reflections on his 12 seasons in Edmonton. He touched on the fan criticism he endured, the family he built there and why the time was right to move on.
Darnell Nurse admits it was time for a change
When asked directly why he felt it was time to leave, Nurse kept his answer simple.
“It was just time for a change,” he said. “I had some deep roots, had some great moments, a lot of great memories, some friends, some good experiences with the organization. But everything has a shelf life and expiry date on it. This was my expiry date on my time in Edmonton.”
Nurse arrived in Edmonton at 18 years old and leaves as a husband and father of three. He acknowledged the city was everything for him even as the hockey journey had its difficult stretches early on.
He reflected on the organization’s evolution over his time there and talked about how far the franchise came from its rebuilding days.
“I can remember a lot of days when we were out of the playoffs by February,” Nurse said. “We were working and trying to get ourselves to be a competent team and a playoff team and a competitor. And we worked our way into that mold.”
Beyond hockey, Nurse noted that Edmonton is where he put down his deepest roots.
“Off the ice, yeah, I’ve had three boys, all three born in Edmonton, and grew my family there,” he said. “There’s a lot of great memories in the sense of watching my family grow, watching the guys on the team grow, watching the city grow as a hockey market when the playoffs came back. It’s easy to sit here in the present and think of all the negative things, but at the end of the day, there’s a lot of positive to look back on and I’m grateful for my time there.”
Nurse gets candid on bearing the brunt of fan criticism
Nurse was asked about the heavy criticism he faced from Oilers fans. Many felt it was tied as much to his $9.25M cap hit as to his on-ice performance.
Nurse was honest in his response acknowledging there were stretches where he fell short of the standard his contract demanded, while also suggesting the scrutiny sometimes went beyond what was fair.
“No one expects more of themselves than me,” Nurse said. “No one is going to expect more of myself and the way I play than myself, if I’m being quite honest. I lived with each and every game, each and every moment, throughout the summer and tried to learn from it and grow from it.”
He went on to acknowledge that his contract made him a natural lightning rod for frustration.
“When you have a high cap hit, yeah, there were things that were definitely warranted, my play warranted them,” he said. “But you could probably look and see there were a lot of things as well that probably weren’t warranted, and for whatever reason I was the problem. That’s sports, though. You’re never going to sell newspapers without going negative, and someone’s got to bear the brunt of that. When you’re making a lot of money and you’re not performing and like I said, there were a lot of moments I felt like I needed to perform better and I didn’t, once you become that target, sometimes that target isn’t moving off you.”
Nurse made clear he views the trade as a clean slate.
“For me, it’s a fresh start,” he said. “Not to worry about.”
Confirming the trade list
Nurse confirmed reports that he had initially limited his trade destinations to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Boston before eventually expanding that list to include San Jose.
He said the decision to broaden his options came after consulting people he trusted both inside and outside the game, and that the feedback he received about San Jose was consistent.
“There was a few options that just made the most sense in my mind at the beginning of the process,” Nurse said. “I went through a deep dive of what I thought was best. I talked to a lot of people I respected in hockey and outside of hockey. And it’s crazy, because every time I brought up San Jose, even when they weren’t on my small list, everyone was like, ‘You’d be crazy not to go there.’ So I’m really happy it shook out this way.”
Nurse and the Sharks will face Edmonton twice in the Pacific Division next season.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
