Edmonton Oilers: Why hasn’t Kailer Yamamoto been signed yet?

The Darnell Nurse extension

Earlier in the summer, Nurse – who has one year to go on his current bridge contract – re-upped with the Oilers for $9.25 million for eight seasons.

Word has it the player was going for less term…..until the Seth Jones contract was signed in Chicago. That set the market for top pairing d-men, so the Oilers had to either pony up or risk seeing Nurse walk away in free agency after next season.

The team had next to no leverage on the player – he has had success for multiple seasons now, he’s proven himself many times over – in the regular season and the playoffs. He got Norris trophy votes after this past season.

As usual, the Oilers’ fans let everyone know their issues with the contract on Twitter after the deal was announced. The criticism that took the cake for me was Nurse isn’t a top pairing d-man.

OK, so if you’re thinking that, then what’s your definition of a top-pairing defenceman? Is it ice time? He led the Oilers in ice time this past season with 25:38 per game. Special teams play? He was seventh on the team in PP ice time, and first in PK ice time.

How about in comparison to other teams? He was 12th in the NHL in boxcars amongst all blueliners in the NHL, going 16-20-36 in 56 games. Just outside the top 10. Think about that for a second. How about defensive play?

He finished with a whopping +27 on the team, second only to Leon Draisaitl and just past Connor Mcdavid at #3 – and that was against the toughest competition the NHL has to offer because that’s who top pairing guys play against. How about physical play? First on the team in PIMs with 57. Fourth on the team in hits with 117 last season, and second on the team in blocked shots with 100.

I don’t know about you, but that seems like a pretty good, balanced player with a lot of tools in his toolbox – he can score, he can play D against tough competition without losing his head, he can play physical, he’s a minute muncher.

There are d-man who are better at any of these categories, but no one is as complete a player as Nurse is on the blueline. No one brings as many tools to blueline as he does.

At this point, if this is you you’re going to have explain to me how Darnell Nurse is NOT a top pairing D-man. If you think he isn’t, you need to call Colonel Mustard and get a clue.

Personally, I have no problem with the contract itself, it was necessary to secure his services. Is there some risk in that he’ll be 35 by the time the contract ends? Maybe, but Nurse is not Ryan Reaves or Tom Wilson or Raffi Torres. Or even Zack Hyman. He can play physical with the best of them but that’s not what his game is based around.

IMO the risk of the contract looking bad is minimal – just my opinion. I don’t know the future – it’s possible I’m wrong – but I don’t see what the brewhaha is about, and IMO the criticism is not warranted.

Also, if you’re a critic of the player or the contract, then riddle me this – who do you replace him with? Losing Nurse would create a huge hole in the lineup. No teams are trading us their top pairing guys no matter what trade package we offer them, and there’s a reason it’s a rarity these players are available in free agency.

It would take a minimum of three seasons to replace Nurse, and likely 5-10. Not to mention it would automatically diminish the performance of Tyson Barrie, who succeeded in large part because of the chemistry he developed with Nurse last season. It would also anger our franchise cornerstones and superstars the McDrai duo, and that’s the last thing you want to do when you’re trying to win now.

My only concern with the deal is where the Oilers are going to get the cap space to pay for it. After all, at the time of this writing, the Oilers are just a shade over $3.2 million over the cap, and they still have to re-sign Yamo, so that’ll likely be closer to five or six by the time it’s all said and done. Yes, we have Klefbom’s LTIR to erase a lot of that, but it won’t erase all of it.

This is a question for Ken Holland to answer next offseason. There’ll be no excuse if he fails to address it because now he won’t have an owner breathing down his neck ordering him to keep a playoff streak alive like he did in Detroit.

Daryl Katz is largely a hands-off owner, a wise decision as he leaves overseeing the team to Bob Nicholson and day-to-day operations to Holland. Owners have meddled in their franchise operations in the past and it never ends well – ask a Leafs fan what they thought of Harold Ballard, as one example.

How many depth contracts are destined for waivers or Bakersfield?  There’s bound to be a couple, and that’ll move the needle a little bit in the right direction, but Holland will have to pull a rabbit out of his hat to avoid cap penalties in the coming seasons. It’s not cap hell because this is a much better team than the one Peter Chiarelli had. But the math remains the same.

We’ll see what happens. Maybe when Koskinen’s contract ends next season Holland will look to most of that for the savings.