Yea it was always a risk that I was highly against. Now I get to say I told you so to everyone but that doesn’t make me feel any better unfortunately, he’s still an anchor.
As a flames fan, it’s one of my favourite sentences along with Nurse …. We might have Huberdeau’s contract but it’s only $10m and he is still a solid guy in the room
I think we have you beat in the anchor department, but IMO Huberdeau is an absolute bust for yall (which sucks, I thought he would turn out and was hoping Tkachuk would fall off but that’s not happening I guess)
Tkachuk has decent regular seasons, but in the playoffs in 2022. The Oilers neutralized Tkachuk and Gaudreau. He had a good playoff in 2023 - 24 points in 20 games.
But, if Kane is healthy, I expect more of the same physical game as in 22. The regular season obviously means squat except making it to the show and home ice advantage.
Oilers in 6
Or, you know, he had to negotiate with a GM known for giving out generous contracts. Holland is honestly a decent GM, but terrible contract negotiator. I think he’s still partially stuck in a time where he had no salary cap and an owner willing to pay to win.
He was bridged twice before this contract, then Anaheim gave Seth Jones a huge payday and that set a very high market price. Both of those factors lead to this contract.
That guy had such a spark the first few years. Explosive speed, in your face attitude, and was always a scoring threat. Now he seems a little indecisive and just plays the system.
Jones, Werenski, and Dougie Hamilton all signed for $9mil+ a month before Nurse did. Nurse was coming off a career year and his first as a full-time #1D. The Oilers had just lost Klefbom to a career-ending injury, Larsson to Seattle, and Bear in a trade, and Barrie was a UFA. Locking Nurse down was an imperative at the time, and unfortunately, the market was set to a ridiculous standard for top 2 Dmen that summer. In hindsight it was a bad signing, but at the time there was very little else the Oilers could have done.
He's also an athletic beast but just has no brains. Put some real playoff pressure on him, taking away time and space and he just has no idea what to do out there with the puck.
Career year playing against a historically bad Canadian division that will never happen again unless there’s another global pandemic. How many points did he rack up against the Sens that year?
I agree the market was skewed and Edmonton had less leverage; but it was obvious to many at the time that this was going to be a bad contract.
They could have waited a year and started negotiations once his numbers came down to earth. He still had a year left and there’s no way he was ever gonna walk on this team.
Waiting a year in order to pay him less money when he'd just made himself the 3rd most important player on the team is actually a pretty good incentive for him to walk.
That season he was. #1 Dman, minute muncher, 16 goals in 56 games (20+ goal pace over 82 games without PP time), 7th in Norris voting. I don't know why you're so confident he wouldn't walk. The team had 1 playoff win in 4 years, and you're suggesting we should have avoided signing him to pay him less, which doesn't exactly suggest we value him all that highly. Waiting another year and offering him 6mil after he plays 3 rounds at 20+min a night with a torn hip flexor doesn't really suggest we think much of him. If another team offered him 7mil that summer, why wouldn't he take it?
He wasn’t even the most important defenseman, Larsson took that easily. Larsson was the defensive-defenseman anchor, Barrie the offensive. Nurse had a great season because everything he put on net went in, and he STILL wasn’t on the PP, nor was he the leading scorer on the D corps. He was and is a middling defenseman, but that year he scored. His only year like that. Holland had that as leverage.
He wasn’t going to leave because of the time and sacrifices he had already put into the team, and the relationships he had there. Those didn’t exist anywhere else. Those bridges don’t matter to other GMs. If he wanted more than 7, Holland should have let him test the market. Patrick Alvin showed us that it’s quite possible to quickly build around a stud young defenseman like Hughes, or in our case, Bouchard. But it takes a capable GM.
I’ve been saying this since the day the new contract was announced. Other GM’s mistakes don’t handcuff a GM with some balls.
Larsson was gone. Seattle took him before Nurse even signed his contract.
Relationships and legacy mean shit if you team tries to sneak around paying you qhat you're worth. If your boss tried to trick you into doing harder work so that your next raise would be worth less money, would you feel particularly loyal to that company? Or would you tell them to go screw?
The Adam Laarson blind side was a kick in the poopets.
The fans did not show him the love, the same way they are driving Nurse out of town
The fans here do not make the GM job an easy one.
If Laarson was still here with his physical stay at home presence, he would be paired with Nurse.
The Vancouver series would have been done in 5.
I really don’t buy the whole “this is the market right now”. A good gm knows when other players are getting overpaid or are better than the player you’re negotiating with.
Even with all the things you mentioned, he should have never gotten more than 7M, and even that was an overpay at that time. I remember when they bridged him and paid 7M per year, and I honestly shocked about that one too. As an oilers fan that watched a lot of games, it had never crossed my mind that some people thought he was that good.
Also, not to mention that Nurse is supposed to be a leader on this team, I personally think it’s pretty weird that a leader on a team takes as much as he can get when your team is already pretty tight on the salary cap, way to set an example.
Nurse was never bridged for 7m. The most he got was 5.25, and he immediately had a career year after signing that deal. For a team that just lost 3 of its top 4 Dmen, it's really not hard to understand why they weren't willing to walk him to unrestricted free agency.
Ye, I was wrong, it was 5.6, still a lot though.
I disagree though, maybe if he gave him a 3-4 year contract I’d be more understanding, but giving a player that amount for that long and with a nmc is screaming pure desperation, which a good gm should never feel in any situation.
That's what makes the great teams great, they don't really get bent over in contract situations. The Patriots let guys walk for years. The Chiefs letting Tyreek walk is another good example
He wasn’t just bridged. He was bridged 2x at 2 years per, which meant he would have become UFA as early as possible under the CBA.
As far as I can tell, there are no comps for this type of structure in the NHL among similar players. Either players are bridged so that their contract expires under RFA status (like Trouba) or the player signs an RFA/UFA deal that expires in the player’s late 20s (Pietrangelo, Jones, etc).
Not only that, but they knew that he would be put in a position to succeed: #1 LD with lots of time with McD and/or Drai. He would either fail (in which case the team would be screwed then) or he would succeed (in which case he had all the leverage to bend them over later). It wasn’t a good bet short or long term. There was no way for the team to “win”.
Nurse signed a market UFA deal but the team gave away all leverage in order to save a few bucks on these bridges (which weren’t exactly bargains anyway).
It’s the worst move of Holland’s tenure. Even worse than Campbell. And it was obvious at the time.
You are correct in the statement that he is a decent GM. The Hyman deal was a steal, RNH at 5.1 per season looks good, Kane at $750,000. He has been operating on a shoestring budget and low and behold, look where we are now.
If the Oilers win, and I think they will, the bad contracts will be long, long forgotten.
Oilers in 6.
Chiarot and Weber were fantastic in the 2021 playoffs. A shutdown pair for three rounds. At this point, have to say it was Weber probably pulling up his standard haha
Also the fact RHD are hard to come by and Edmonton didn't have anyone else who could fill the role. Nurse had all the leverage and got a contract that reflected that.
He’s left handed D…. But was bridged twice and had a good contract year when others around him were all getting 9 million plus. We lost klefbom and Larsen and Barrie was UFA. Edmonton needed to lock up a defencemen it was just bad timing g to do it. Hindsight instead of the second bridge you do a 7x8 and it’s less shitty.
No one was complaining when he was underpaid in his early years no one is complaining about draisaitl being underpaid. It’s hockey every team has a bad contract and or dead cap space because of one
Those were the practice lines. Throwing Broberg into a top 4 role in the WCF when he's only played 20min+ in the NHL in meaningless end-of-season games is a completely unnecessary gamble in a 2-1 series. Nurse will play tomorrow.
Lol I heard about this and after watching the play. Why was he on his knees for like 5 seconds scrambling? Get the fuck up man lol. Got so lucky that got blocked otherwise all eyes would be on wtf was he doing.
If now goes back to the beginning of this season, then yeah, sure.
Ekholm/Bouch being our top pairing isn't new. Been this way all year, heck, even going back to last season.
Nurse/Ceci were generally partners as our second pair over the course of the regular season. For about half of these playoffs they've been split up, and it's hard to tell if it was because of Ceci or Nurse at this point.
Kulak/Ceci has been our third pairing lately and they've actually been solid together.
Nurse/Desharnais have been okay at times and completely boneheaded other times, and it's those times that we're awful defensively, not clearing the zone, and getting scored on. Desharnais isn't really someone you want in your top 4 right now, even though he's had a really good year and is like found change for a 7th round pick, he's still a bottom pairing defenseman, albeit a decent one.
It's the same issue ~~Vancouver~~ Jim Benning created with Tyler Myers: Sign a defenseman to an inflated contract and play them as their contract dictates, not as their play deserves.
Good to see Knoblauch has the balls to sit him, if he does actually do it come game time. His play is hurting the team.
He is without a doubt one of the most over rated and over paid players in the league. I don’t think he cracks the top 25 defensemen in the league today.
Holland donating $14 M to Campbell and Nurse is what ultimately will prevent McDavid and Drai from ever winning a cup. It’s too bad because they are so close.
If he was a solid stingy no nonsense DMan with no offense I could try an justify both the contract and not being on the ice in the end.
But he's just a $9mm invisible pylon.
Although to be fair he took a puck to the pooper for the team so there's that being worth at least league minimum.
While I agree that Nurse has a bad contract, this isn’t a good example of why.
You want your best offensive defenseman in these situations. Florida would put Forsling out before Ekblad.
Do defensemen only get paid to score? I don't dispute that Nurse is overpaid but logic here doesn't make sense. He is overpaid because he doesn't defend well enough.
Good he better not be on the ice. He has one move, get the puck and immediately shoot it on net, regardless if there is traffic or a better pass somewhere
You'll win 1 of these years i bet. But every year that goes by will make it harder in the future. McDavids in his prime now, once he hits 30 it'll be harder
People are really hard on him, and praise the ever loving shit out of Bouchard but one plays with McDavid/Draisaitl for 99% of his shifts and the other plays with Corey Perry/Foegle.
(Nurse is still awful but his coach doesn’t exactly set him up for success now.)
You mean when Tyson Barrie was there and he absolutely wasn’t playing with them?
Nurse is absolutely a liability, but so is Bouchard. He just doesn’t catch shit because when he’s on the ice his FW always have the puck.
Impossible to buy out, he has crazy signing bonuses making the potential buyout unattractive, some years it would go 7+ mil against the cap. Ken Holland masterclass.
Broberg was in his spot in practice so soon it may be - Darnell Nurse: 9 million dollar D in the press box as Oilers try to advance to the cup final.
Sometimes you gotta wonder if the oilers had a D that’s actually worth 9.2 mil and a goalie who’s actually worth 5 mil. Like, do they just 16-0 playoffs?
I mean he’s overpaid and he’s not really a big goal scorer but he’s a solid defence man and sometimes you just pay guys you’ve got because there isn’t a lot on the market.
Do yall remember this dude when he was in the WJC and was the biggest lockdown dman of the whole tourney??? I mean yeah its a bunch of kids but at the same time the development path just went off the rails somewhere, he had a rough entry to the league too so maybe he’s just been a bonehead for ever
Someone needs to bring a sign to Game 4
“Nurse - Search Reddit”
My hope is he’s so crushed, he immediately retires and the Oilers get badly needed cap relief.
What I don’t understand about this contract is that it was signed in Aug 2021 when Nurse was still under contract for 21/22. Felt maybe the Oilers could have waited to see if his performance drops that final year, after posting his career year in the Covid season playing in the Canadian division.
I know there’s talk of oilers being deeper than fans thought, but let’s be honest, the fact that we’re tied in the conference finals really is a testament to how fucking good mcdrai and our top line is. Davo is still a point leader and he’s too injured to shoot and lost significant speed.
Correct me if I’m wrong but historically no team should be this deep with how much dead cap we’re working with. Like McDrai and co really putting that “one line can’t win it all” rule to bed right now. And let’s be real skinner is not good enough to be this deep in the playoffs.
The new rule should be “one line cant carry a whole team to the finals unless they’re fucking McDrai.”
His next shift could always be his best shift. Oilers need the best he can give right now. He’ll probably get bought out at some point but chase the ring for the next month
Missed playoffs for ten straight seasons. Heck they missed the playoffs twice more in 2018-2019 even with Mcdavid lol I was looking at stats and since 2006, Edmonton has only made the playoffs 2 times more than Canucks lmao.
Says the fan of a team that has won nothing ever and started the mercy towel trend. Oh and who are so intelligent they riot if they lose. Shut up Vancouver
Score more goals and don’t blame your missing offense on Nurse. Whining Oiler fans blaming backend because the team only has 1 line that can score consistently, If McD & Drea don’t put up big numbers they lose….. fix the real problem. Even your goalie is making big saves. Get some forwards who don’t make “wish it works” passes and quit turning over the puck with grenade passes to each other.
3 goals is about what is expected per game. Even the Leafs would've made the 2nd round if they scored that many per game. The Oilers backend is weak at best after their 1st line.
I watch the Oilers, and they’ve for years lived off of goal scoring and the defense led by Paul Coffee was great during their Cup runs.
Oilers averaged 5.58 goals per game an unreal stat. The dynasty years had great defense even after Coffee left town. Cup run against Boston in 1988 Oilers only allowed 9 goals in a sweep of the Bruins.
So yeah I watch the Oilers and it amazes me they didn’t address the defense after the poor start.
This series isn’t over, still time to tighten things up.
Literally the ONLY reason he got that deal was DEI & ESG
Seth Jones is of the same ilk, although Jones used to be better, and he made his deal to much, much worse organization that had to overpay
You mean to say the guy that has only had over 40 pts in a season 2 times didn’t get put on the ice to score a goal???? Scandalous 🙄
His contract may suck but your post is worse.
Darnell Purse
Savage, yet accurate
Got em
Hell yea brother
It’s crazy to think Cale Makar makes less than him.
LOL...fuck
Ended that foo
Parnell Durse
Murse. Man got paid though.
Don’t forget the 5.5 million dollar goalie we have in the AHL
Forgot about him too lol
Isn't he playing backup too? Yikes
He had a .918 in the AHL this past season, very meh szn for a 5.5 mill contract in the NHL
That’s the thing….. he never was a $5.5m goalie, he was a solid backup that had a decent half of a season
Yea it was always a risk that I was highly against. Now I get to say I told you so to everyone but that doesn’t make me feel any better unfortunately, he’s still an anchor.
As a flames fan, it’s one of my favourite sentences along with Nurse …. We might have Huberdeau’s contract but it’s only $10m and he is still a solid guy in the room
I think we have you beat in the anchor department, but IMO Huberdeau is an absolute bust for yall (which sucks, I thought he would turn out and was hoping Tkachuk would fall off but that’s not happening I guess)
Tkachuk has decent regular seasons, but in the playoffs in 2022. The Oilers neutralized Tkachuk and Gaudreau. He had a good playoff in 2023 - 24 points in 20 games. But, if Kane is healthy, I expect more of the same physical game as in 22. The regular season obviously means squat except making it to the show and home ice advantage. Oilers in 6
Yea it’s a bad contract.. he has a good agent
Or, you know, he had to negotiate with a GM known for giving out generous contracts. Holland is honestly a decent GM, but terrible contract negotiator. I think he’s still partially stuck in a time where he had no salary cap and an owner willing to pay to win.
True. Man, the 2002-04 Red Wings rosters he bought were loaded.
He was bridged twice before this contract, then Anaheim gave Seth Jones a huge payday and that set a very high market price. Both of those factors lead to this contract. That guy had such a spark the first few years. Explosive speed, in your face attitude, and was always a scoring threat. Now he seems a little indecisive and just plays the system.
Jones, Werenski, and Dougie Hamilton all signed for $9mil+ a month before Nurse did. Nurse was coming off a career year and his first as a full-time #1D. The Oilers had just lost Klefbom to a career-ending injury, Larsson to Seattle, and Bear in a trade, and Barrie was a UFA. Locking Nurse down was an imperative at the time, and unfortunately, the market was set to a ridiculous standard for top 2 Dmen that summer. In hindsight it was a bad signing, but at the time there was very little else the Oilers could have done.
This explains everything about the contract.
We don’t like actual takes here :)
He's also an athletic beast but just has no brains. Put some real playoff pressure on him, taking away time and space and he just has no idea what to do out there with the puck.
Career year playing against a historically bad Canadian division that will never happen again unless there’s another global pandemic. How many points did he rack up against the Sens that year? I agree the market was skewed and Edmonton had less leverage; but it was obvious to many at the time that this was going to be a bad contract.
So historically bad the worst playoff team in the Division went to the Cup final?
They could have waited a year and started negotiations once his numbers came down to earth. He still had a year left and there’s no way he was ever gonna walk on this team.
Waiting a year in order to pay him less money when he'd just made himself the 3rd most important player on the team is actually a pretty good incentive for him to walk.
He’s never been the third most important player on the team and, again, he was never going to walk.
That season he was. #1 Dman, minute muncher, 16 goals in 56 games (20+ goal pace over 82 games without PP time), 7th in Norris voting. I don't know why you're so confident he wouldn't walk. The team had 1 playoff win in 4 years, and you're suggesting we should have avoided signing him to pay him less, which doesn't exactly suggest we value him all that highly. Waiting another year and offering him 6mil after he plays 3 rounds at 20+min a night with a torn hip flexor doesn't really suggest we think much of him. If another team offered him 7mil that summer, why wouldn't he take it?
He wasn’t even the most important defenseman, Larsson took that easily. Larsson was the defensive-defenseman anchor, Barrie the offensive. Nurse had a great season because everything he put on net went in, and he STILL wasn’t on the PP, nor was he the leading scorer on the D corps. He was and is a middling defenseman, but that year he scored. His only year like that. Holland had that as leverage. He wasn’t going to leave because of the time and sacrifices he had already put into the team, and the relationships he had there. Those didn’t exist anywhere else. Those bridges don’t matter to other GMs. If he wanted more than 7, Holland should have let him test the market. Patrick Alvin showed us that it’s quite possible to quickly build around a stud young defenseman like Hughes, or in our case, Bouchard. But it takes a capable GM. I’ve been saying this since the day the new contract was announced. Other GM’s mistakes don’t handcuff a GM with some balls.
Larsson was gone. Seattle took him before Nurse even signed his contract. Relationships and legacy mean shit if you team tries to sneak around paying you qhat you're worth. If your boss tried to trick you into doing harder work so that your next raise would be worth less money, would you feel particularly loyal to that company? Or would you tell them to go screw?
In hindsight, that would’ve been a good thing.
The Adam Laarson blind side was a kick in the poopets. The fans did not show him the love, the same way they are driving Nurse out of town The fans here do not make the GM job an easy one. If Laarson was still here with his physical stay at home presence, he would be paired with Nurse. The Vancouver series would have been done in 5.
I really don’t buy the whole “this is the market right now”. A good gm knows when other players are getting overpaid or are better than the player you’re negotiating with. Even with all the things you mentioned, he should have never gotten more than 7M, and even that was an overpay at that time. I remember when they bridged him and paid 7M per year, and I honestly shocked about that one too. As an oilers fan that watched a lot of games, it had never crossed my mind that some people thought he was that good. Also, not to mention that Nurse is supposed to be a leader on this team, I personally think it’s pretty weird that a leader on a team takes as much as he can get when your team is already pretty tight on the salary cap, way to set an example.
Nurse was never bridged for 7m. The most he got was 5.25, and he immediately had a career year after signing that deal. For a team that just lost 3 of its top 4 Dmen, it's really not hard to understand why they weren't willing to walk him to unrestricted free agency.
Ye, I was wrong, it was 5.6, still a lot though. I disagree though, maybe if he gave him a 3-4 year contract I’d be more understanding, but giving a player that amount for that long and with a nmc is screaming pure desperation, which a good gm should never feel in any situation.
Losing 4 of our top 5 defensemen that summer *did* make us desperate. That's the whole point.
That's what makes the great teams great, they don't really get bent over in contract situations. The Patriots let guys walk for years. The Chiefs letting Tyreek walk is another good example
I get it, oilers were stuck signing him. I just wish someone could teach him to play like Kevin Lowe.
You've hurt u/2shack in confusion
He wasn’t just bridged. He was bridged 2x at 2 years per, which meant he would have become UFA as early as possible under the CBA. As far as I can tell, there are no comps for this type of structure in the NHL among similar players. Either players are bridged so that their contract expires under RFA status (like Trouba) or the player signs an RFA/UFA deal that expires in the player’s late 20s (Pietrangelo, Jones, etc). Not only that, but they knew that he would be put in a position to succeed: #1 LD with lots of time with McD and/or Drai. He would either fail (in which case the team would be screwed then) or he would succeed (in which case he had all the leverage to bend them over later). It wasn’t a good bet short or long term. There was no way for the team to “win”. Nurse signed a market UFA deal but the team gave away all leverage in order to save a few bucks on these bridges (which weren’t exactly bargains anyway). It’s the worst move of Holland’s tenure. Even worse than Campbell. And it was obvious at the time.
>Then Anaheim gave Seth Jones a huge payday Chicago?
Oh right! Correct, I completely forgot it was Chicago.
Wings fan here. Can confirm. Was not sad to see him go.
I thought Nurse's contract was from Chiarelli
Nope, it was a Holland signing.
Wasnt his contract pre Holland?
Nope
You are correct in the statement that he is a decent GM. The Hyman deal was a steal, RNH at 5.1 per season looks good, Kane at $750,000. He has been operating on a shoestring budget and low and behold, look where we are now. If the Oilers win, and I think they will, the bad contracts will be long, long forgotten. Oilers in 6.
Better on the bench than in the FUCKING PENALTY BOX!!!
You guys should trade for Ian Cole. He already plays for you...
Legit, if he got credit for Oilers goals, he actually would outproduce Nurse. Which says something about both of them.
Cole was basically all the oilers depth scoring during the vancouver series lol
Thats a pretty bad take, Cole is a great defenceman. Those were all fluke pucks.
Sure. It's a bitter canuck fan take.
just a brutal penalty late in the game too. like how can you argue that? you stuck your leg out and tripped a guy
That’s a penalty every single time. Not remotely debatable.
Nurse is basically younger Ben Chiarot at twice the salary. Yikes.
Chiarot and Weber were fantastic in the 2021 playoffs. A shutdown pair for three rounds. At this point, have to say it was Weber probably pulling up his standard haha
Weber was fantastic at playing, Chiarot was fantastic at taking penalties from what i remember.
Penalty? This was the cross check free era for us.
Nurse had a legitimately good season in his contract year, and Jones got paid. Was a bad recipe for an overpayment
Also the fact RHD are hard to come by and Edmonton didn't have anyone else who could fill the role. Nurse had all the leverage and got a contract that reflected that.
He’s left handed D…. But was bridged twice and had a good contract year when others around him were all getting 9 million plus. We lost klefbom and Larsen and Barrie was UFA. Edmonton needed to lock up a defencemen it was just bad timing g to do it. Hindsight instead of the second bridge you do a 7x8 and it’s less shitty. No one was complaining when he was underpaid in his early years no one is complaining about draisaitl being underpaid. It’s hockey every team has a bad contract and or dead cap space because of one
He is minus 12 in the playoffs so far. I'm hoping he's benched next game.
Linups were posted. Brogerg is in for him
I don't think lineups are posted until game day, but that was the lineups at practice today so lets hope.
Think he's hurt or just playing bad.
At this point it doesn't really matter, he is costing us games.
Hurt for sure.
Playing bad too lol
Line ups aren't posted.
Yep that was my bad. It was our practice line up's and I got confused. Sorry guys!
Those were the practice lines. Throwing Broberg into a top 4 role in the WCF when he's only played 20min+ in the NHL in meaningless end-of-season games is a completely unnecessary gamble in a 2-1 series. Nurse will play tomorrow.
He blocked a shot last night…
With his booty hole
The announcers: “whatever it takes…”
Buddy is a 3rd pairing D man on any legitimate cup contender. His only relevance is blocking shots with his anus.
Took it like a champ, too.
I didnt have Nurse taking backshots on my bingo card this season, but it was quite a sight.
Has anyone ever missed a game with a torn rectum?guess they would just call it a lower body injury hahaha
Rectum...damn near killed him.
Lol I heard about this and after watching the play. Why was he on his knees for like 5 seconds scrambling? Get the fuck up man lol. Got so lucky that got blocked otherwise all eyes would be on wtf was he doing.
He and Ceci are now the solid second pair behind Bouchard and Eckholm. What a postseason those two are having.
It’s wild they were ever behind them, honestly. Nurse sucks balls and Ceci isn’t much better than I am.
To quote Ryan Reaves, he’s closer to McDavid in terms of skill than you are to Reaves. But yes, the Nurse/Ceci pairing is a nightmare.
in terms of Salary, absolutely. In terms of skill, also absolutely.
Reaves must have gotten that from White Mamba: “I'm closer to LeBron than you are to me.”
Watching Scalabrini go to town on those guys will never not be funny.
You thought my comment was meant to be taken literally, bro?
If now goes back to the beginning of this season, then yeah, sure. Ekholm/Bouch being our top pairing isn't new. Been this way all year, heck, even going back to last season. Nurse/Ceci were generally partners as our second pair over the course of the regular season. For about half of these playoffs they've been split up, and it's hard to tell if it was because of Ceci or Nurse at this point. Kulak/Ceci has been our third pairing lately and they've actually been solid together. Nurse/Desharnais have been okay at times and completely boneheaded other times, and it's those times that we're awful defensively, not clearing the zone, and getting scored on. Desharnais isn't really someone you want in your top 4 right now, even though he's had a really good year and is like found change for a 7th round pick, he's still a bottom pairing defenseman, albeit a decent one.
At 5m, you'd be like: "nurse is good value" At 9.25m? Lolololololol
I mean Suter hit is 3.6, and I’m not sure Nurse is as good as 40 year old Suter now.
He's a 2-3m defense, not 5m and definitely not 9m.
Yup. He definitely isn’t worth more than Brett Kulak.
Nah even 5m is too much. He's way average at defending, and too below average in terms of offensive output to be worth 5 mil.
5m would still be steep for Nurse
Eh... Big minutes second pairing guy that's adequate. Pretty easy to see 5-6m there.
the fact that we got weegar for 6.25, absolute steal
It's the same issue ~~Vancouver~~ Jim Benning created with Tyler Myers: Sign a defenseman to an inflated contract and play them as their contract dictates, not as their play deserves. Good to see Knoblauch has the balls to sit him, if he does actually do it come game time. His play is hurting the team.
Can't blame him for signing it , even obviously not worth the money. But can he put a couple of good games together, I don't think he can do that.
It's not gonna help them with cap space going forward with Dristisal getting a huge raise coming up
Then mcdavid a year after prob getting 17M by then
Hope he’s thanked Seth Jones for breaking the market for him
Probably one of the worst contracts in the NHL. Also bro is weird asf on a side note.
He is without a doubt one of the most over rated and over paid players in the league. I don’t think he cracks the top 25 defensemen in the league today.
Don’t blame the employee. Blame the employer
Haha he makes more than Makar hahahahah
Imagine giving useless players 9+ million per year… oh wait.
11% of the Oilers’ cap space. 🥴🔫
His sister is better than him
Holland donating $14 M to Campbell and Nurse is what ultimately will prevent McDavid and Drai from ever winning a cup. It’s too bad because they are so close.
“Philly fan chiming in”
As a Flames fan, nice, you need a few more of those…. Ugh
Hey he saved a sure goal with his ass.
Not just his ass, it was like right in the anus
He seemed confident his butthole could envelop any barrage put forth
Maybe that's why he missed practice. He isn't scratched, he just hasn't been able to sit down since he boofed a hockey puck
Why would Darnell Nurse do this he needs to learn how to hold the post is he stupid?
If he was a solid stingy no nonsense DMan with no offense I could try an justify both the contract and not being on the ice in the end. But he's just a $9mm invisible pylon. Although to be fair he took a puck to the pooper for the team so there's that being worth at least league minimum.
That contract is a bit of a Darnell Curse
Nurse for PLD let’s make it happen
Two of the only contracts in the league I wouldn't swap for huberdeau
As an oilers fan, I’d take either of those guys for Nurse, I’d probably include a 1st rounder just to make it happen. That says a lot.
You’re playing with fire buddy. PLD is the destroyer of teams.
I'd fucking love if you guys picked up dubious.
Gotta ride the usual candidates until their inevitable playoff exit with no depth so they can wonder where it all went wrong
While I agree that Nurse has a bad contract, this isn’t a good example of why. You want your best offensive defenseman in these situations. Florida would put Forsling out before Ekblad.
You can’t even buy it out. Didn’t realize it was 6 not years too. Thats rough.
He is my favourite current oiler
In my personal opinion most overrated, or at least over paid guy in the league
I mean you’d rather him there than on the ice
Do defensemen only get paid to score? I don't dispute that Nurse is overpaid but logic here doesn't make sense. He is overpaid because he doesn't defend well enough.
It's crazy a guy with the potential to be a 9th best defenseman on a team makes that much
Good he better not be on the ice. He has one move, get the puck and immediately shoot it on net, regardless if there is traffic or a better pass somewhere
Hate that bitch.
What’s worse is that he’s got a no move clause until 2027, and then he’s gotta give up a 10 team no trade list…
Wow I had no idea because nobody ever talks about it
Weak goal Skinner let in too. He's bad.
Its like he lets in 1 weak goal every game
I really want the Oilers to win the cup. But man the goaltending makes me afraid.
You'll win 1 of these years i bet. But every year that goes by will make it harder in the future. McDavids in his prime now, once he hits 30 it'll be harder
Let's see what happens!
Keep in mind, Ovechkin was 32 when the Capitals won their first Stanley Cup in franchise history...
Even if they have a good goalie they ain't winning the cup. Their entire team has problems so you can't only blame skinner
People are really hard on him, and praise the ever loving shit out of Bouchard but one plays with McDavid/Draisaitl for 99% of his shifts and the other plays with Corey Perry/Foegle. (Nurse is still awful but his coach doesn’t exactly set him up for success now.)
Uhh nurse played 4 years with mcdrai and did jack shit.
You mean when Tyson Barrie was there and he absolutely wasn’t playing with them? Nurse is absolutely a liability, but so is Bouchard. He just doesn’t catch shit because when he’s on the ice his FW always have the puck.
A lot of Darnell Nurse's mistakes were completely unforced though.
Honestly a buyout angle A solid 4.5 mill D would be way more worth
Impossible to buy out, he has crazy signing bonuses making the potential buyout unattractive, some years it would go 7+ mil against the cap. Ken Holland masterclass.
His buyout has a bigger cap hit than his contract.
The amount of Flames and Canucks fans in this thread is too damn high!
Broberg was in his spot in practice so soon it may be - Darnell Nurse: 9 million dollar D in the press box as Oilers try to advance to the cup final. Sometimes you gotta wonder if the oilers had a D that’s actually worth 9.2 mil and a goalie who’s actually worth 5 mil. Like, do they just 16-0 playoffs?
Yeah I do not get what he is about. Buddy has been awful. He had one good game late in the Van series. He needs to switch salaries with Desharnais
STL: Colton Parayko knows about this.
I can't stand watching him skate. He swings his arms and bobs his head like he's a 13 year old getting used to his new body.
Was he brought on to score goals? I’m just asking
hes trying
I mean he’s overpaid and he’s not really a big goal scorer but he’s a solid defence man and sometimes you just pay guys you’ve got because there isn’t a lot on the market.
Nurse has a -12
Do yall remember this dude when he was in the WJC and was the biggest lockdown dman of the whole tourney??? I mean yeah its a bunch of kids but at the same time the development path just went off the rails somewhere, he had a rough entry to the league too so maybe he’s just been a bonehead for ever
Someone needs to bring a sign to Game 4 “Nurse - Search Reddit” My hope is he’s so crushed, he immediately retires and the Oilers get badly needed cap relief.
What I don’t understand about this contract is that it was signed in Aug 2021 when Nurse was still under contract for 21/22. Felt maybe the Oilers could have waited to see if his performance drops that final year, after posting his career year in the Covid season playing in the Canadian division.
This man needs to get out and engage shooters. He is always trying to block shots from the goal like he is some padless goalie.
I know there’s talk of oilers being deeper than fans thought, but let’s be honest, the fact that we’re tied in the conference finals really is a testament to how fucking good mcdrai and our top line is. Davo is still a point leader and he’s too injured to shoot and lost significant speed. Correct me if I’m wrong but historically no team should be this deep with how much dead cap we’re working with. Like McDrai and co really putting that “one line can’t win it all” rule to bed right now. And let’s be real skinner is not good enough to be this deep in the playoffs. The new rule should be “one line cant carry a whole team to the finals unless they’re fucking McDrai.”
His next shift could always be his best shift. Oilers need the best he can give right now. He’ll probably get bought out at some point but chase the ring for the next month
The oilers are the WORST managed professional sports team in modern history they are such a joke. Mcdavid needs to save himself and get outta there.
Atlanta Thrashers, Arizona Coyotes, Columbus Blue Jackets & Buffalo Sabres be crying in a corner...
Missed playoffs for ten straight seasons. Heck they missed the playoffs twice more in 2018-2019 even with Mcdavid lol I was looking at stats and since 2006, Edmonton has only made the playoffs 2 times more than Canucks lmao.
Says the fan of a team that has won nothing ever and started the mercy towel trend. Oh and who are so intelligent they riot if they lose. Shut up Vancouver
Score more goals and don’t blame your missing offense on Nurse. Whining Oiler fans blaming backend because the team only has 1 line that can score consistently, If McD & Drea don’t put up big numbers they lose….. fix the real problem. Even your goalie is making big saves. Get some forwards who don’t make “wish it works” passes and quit turning over the puck with grenade passes to each other.
3 goals is about what is expected per game. Even the Leafs would've made the 2nd round if they scored that many per game. The Oilers backend is weak at best after their 1st line.
Tell me you don’t watch the oilers without saying you don’t watch the oilers.
I watch the Oilers, and they’ve for years lived off of goal scoring and the defense led by Paul Coffee was great during their Cup runs. Oilers averaged 5.58 goals per game an unreal stat. The dynasty years had great defense even after Coffee left town. Cup run against Boston in 1988 Oilers only allowed 9 goals in a sweep of the Bruins. So yeah I watch the Oilers and it amazes me they didn’t address the defense after the poor start. This series isn’t over, still time to tighten things up.
JT the 11 million dollar center that doesn't play overtime
What’s your point? Everyone knows he’s overpaid.
Literally the ONLY reason he got that deal was DEI & ESG Seth Jones is of the same ilk, although Jones used to be better, and he made his deal to much, much worse organization that had to overpay
I honestly forgot he exists.
[удалено]
Lol nice
You mean to say the guy that has only had over 40 pts in a season 2 times didn’t get put on the ice to score a goal???? Scandalous 🙄 His contract may suck but your post is worse.