Darnell Nurse and his contract have been the topic of a lot of offseason chatter for oilers fans throughout the offseason. This year will mark the first year of Nurse’s 8-year $74 million contract (9.25 per year), which has many fans concerned that he won’t be able to live up to that or anywhere near. I’m here to tell you the opposite; I’m here to tell you those people are wrong and why Darnell Nurse will have a much better season than you think.
There is no point in denying it; Darnell Nurse had a very rough stretch in the 2022 playoffs. Although he played with a torn hip flexor (ouch), he was hurting the team more than helping at the time, which was very frustrating to watch for many team supporters. This added fuel to the “Darnell Nurse is going to have one of the worst contracts in the league” fire. Despite Nurse’s playoff woes, the Oilers won 8 playoff games and earned a Western Conference Finals berth.
With all the size and athleticism Nurse brings to the table, I believe he just needed a coach to work with him to push him over the edge into that elite-level defensemen territory. Defensive coach Dave Manson will certainly challenge Nurse and push him to use that hard-nosed side to his game along with smarter coverage, allowing Nurse to use his reach more efficiently. To explain, when Manson first replaced Jim Playfair on the defensive side of the Oilers bench, the difference in the way the Oilers defended was immediately noticeable. The Oilers went from a team that allowed teams to enter to zone and worry about the rest later to a team that stood on that blue line and, with all the confidence in the world, said, “try me.” This play style will fit exceptionally well into how Darnell Nurse wants to play defense, being 6’4, 220, and a pretty good skater. This will be a nightmare for opposing players under Oiler’s new coaching regime.
Darnell Nurse isn’t going to contribute on offense the way he did in 2020 (0.64 Points Per Game), and he isn’t going to be as bad as his lows in 21/22. We can find Nurse somewhere in the middle, as an elite level 2-way defenseman who is about to enter his prime playing with the best roster he ever has had the chance to play with.
We still don’t know exactly when Nurse will return from injury, but it should fall somewhere in the season’s first quarter. So, don’t be too quick to hate on him to start the season because injuries are hard to come back from. When Nurse gets going this year, I am fully 100% ready to claim that this is the season Nurse proves himself to be a top D-man in the league. I expect him to have the best overall season of his career. All in all, Nurse isn’t going to be just another brick in the Oiler’s defense. He’s going to be an entire wall.
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