Darnell Nurse has a chance to be the rarest of all things in Edmonton Oilers history: a defenceman drafted and developed by the team who also plays his entire career in the city.
It’s never been done.
Legendary Oilers like Kevin Lowe, Paul Coffey, Charlie Huddy, Randy Gregg and Steve Smith started their careers in Edmonton, but all were dealt away or left via free agency.
On Friday, Nurse signed a massive eight-year deal for $74 million ($9.25 million annual cap hit). He is the team’s best defenceman and just completed his career season. To deliver on the contract, he’ll need to play at that level or better for most of it. Here’s a look at the player, how he got here and what may come.
The defence
The first scouting report I read on Nurse came from Kyle Dubas, who was the general manager of the Soo Greyhounds of the OHL. Dubas said “his underlying numbers are excellent. Relative to the competition he plays (against), he does extremely well. Far greater than 50 percent of the time, the puck is not in our end. If we’re taking the other team’s best players and forcing them to play in their end and away from the puck, that’s a successful day. The quality of competition he’s faced is higher than anyone else in our league, especially among defencemen.”
That was a cutting-edge answer at the time. Analytics remained out of the media spotlight, certainly when a general manager of any hockey team was talking about his player. Dubas’ words about Nurse are still useful in describing Nurse today, as defending against elite opponents is his specialty. Using
