Oilers: Is the Darnell Nurse criticism fair after his long contract extension?
“Nurse’s success is due to his time with McDavid”
Perhaps the most common criticism levied against just about any Oilers that has success on the Oilers and it’s one that’s frequently used in the case against Nurse. How much truth is there to it? Well, let’s start with this year:
McDavid w/o Nurse: 54.6% SCF*, 51.9% GF, 9.6% Sh%, 88.2% Sv%, 58.5% Off. FO
Nurse w/o McDavid: 44.8% SCF, 50.0% GF, 8.8% Sh%, 93.3% Sv%, 40.1% Off. FO
Together: 56.0% SCF, 58.8% GF, 11.7% Sh%, 90.1% Sv%, 64.1% Off. FO
* I use scoring chances (SCF) as I believe it’s the best proxy for identifying meaningful possession; Corsi doesn’t distinguish shot quality at all and high-danger chances are more difficult to accurately/consistently quantify (less reliable public numbers)
As you can see, there’s (obviously) a drop-off in Nurse’s possession metrics when he’s away from Connor. This is far from a surprise given how bad the bottom-6 has been and that Draisaitl isn’t a particularly strong player by possession metrics.
The most glaring difference is his deployment when apart from Connor where Nurse sees only 40.1% of his on-ice faceoffs in the offensive zone compared to much more offensive role (64.1%) he plays when with him. This can likely serve to explain some more of the discrepancy between his ‘w/ Connor’ and ‘w/o Connor’ numbers.
Despite this, Nurse managed to keep his goal share even when away from McDavid. This is likely a result of luck on his part but it’s possible that he’s one of those players that helps his team capitalize on their chances at a higher-than-average rate.
Most important to note here is how the two produce much better results when together than either do when apart. McDavid saw his chance share, goal share, on-ice shooting %, and on-ice save % improve when with Nurse than without him. This is the part of the story that’s often omitted in the lower-resolution criticisms of Nurse. He and his pairing(s) had a tangible positive impact on McDavid’s success this past year, as well.
But what about the years prior? What if this was all a result of Nurse’s hot streak this year? Here’s the same set of numbers but with the sample extended to include the past 3 years:
McDavid w/o Nurse: 51.4% SCF, 51.6% GF, 9.9% Sh%, 90.1% Sv%, 57.1% Off. FO
Nurse w/o McDavid: 44.5% SCF, 46.6% GF, 7.2% Sh%, 91.9% Sv%, 41.2% Off. FO
Together: 51.5% SCF, 53.8% GF, 11.8% Sh%, 90.3% Sv%, 60.4% Off. FO
As you can see, this dataset points to many of the same trends. They play a heavily offensive role when together and Nurse and his pairings seem to contribute to a tangible improvement in McDavid’s on-ice results. There’s very clearly a reason why Nurse gets a greater proportion of time with Connor than other Oilers defensemen.
While there’s certainly room for improvement in his ‘w/o McDavid’ metrics, I don’t think it’s all that fair to weigh them too heavily given the sub-replacement level play the Oilers have gotten out of their bottom-6 throughout this sample. With the improvements made to the Oilers’ forward group this offseason, that’ll be an area that I’ll be keeping a keen eye on throughout next season.
(Stats per Natural Stat Trick)