Top 3 Oilers duds in home opener versus Canucks
By Paul Taylor
2) Darnell Nurse
When it comes to the Oilers’ blue line, Darnell Nurse is undoubtedly one of their top options. In this respect, he is coming off arguably his best season yet, which included career-highs in points, blocks and takeaways.
However, this hasn’t translated into Nurse’s play so far in 2023-24. He has looked nothing like the defenceman he’s capable of being, in effectively every facet of his game.
This obviously included on Saturday night, when the 2013 seventh overall draft pick failed to show much purpose or fight. It was almost as if he was distracted, with his mind elsewhere.
Certainly, this would explain Nurse’s biggest mistake, which came at an extremely crucial juncture of the game. The Oilers had tied the game at 2-2 early in the second period, before his error contributed to the Canucks retaking the lead within just 51 seconds.
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In fairness to the 28-year-old, he wasn’t the only Oilers player to make a mistake on Jack Studnicka’s goal which made it 3-2 to the visitors. However, it was ultimately the worst.
Nurse was the last skater standing between the Canucks and Stuart Skinner in goal, with the Oilers attacking up the other end. Despite this, he started to drift up the ice and before you knew it, the visitors had got behind him on a two-on-zero counter-attack, allowing Studnicka to bury his opportunity.
Now in his 10th season of NHL-level action, this was inexcusable from the Hamilton, Ontario native. He has too much experience to be making such awful decisions.
In some respects, you could use Nurse’s mistake to encapsulate the Oilers’ first two games of the season. The only positive is — hopefully — he can’t get any worse and should bounce back sooner than later.