DARNELL NURSE - Defenseman - 24 - $3.20MM Cap Hit - RFA in 2020-2021
LAST UPDATED 8/5/19
A former top prospect, Darnell Nurse is finally on track to becoming the two-way defensive force Edmonton has needed since the departure of Chris Pronger. Playing with some strong offensive teammates and taking advantage of a defensive corps lacking in high-end talent, Darnell Nurse was able to have his career's best offensive season, posting a very good 41 points. Nurse is a good skater with strong puck moving abilities, and the fact that he's able to efficiently join the rush and help out with zone exits and zone entries makes him a good transitional defenseman, and contributes to his offensive production. What worries me about Nurse, though, is that I think his uptick in offensive production is more because of circumstance than actual newfound talent. Now, Nurse is a strong offensive player like I mentioned, with good skating abilities, and he defninitely can be a 40 point defenseman, but I hesitate to say that's where he's at now in a vacuum. Nurse got the benefit of increased ice time and top-end power play usage thanks to the injury to Oscar Klefbom, and he responded by having a significantly higher volume of chances to get assists thanks to the insane quality of his teammates, most importantly of them, Connor McDavid. Any defenseman that can facilitate give-and-go's with McDavid when he's pinned in the corners on a power play is going to rack up assists, and that's what Nurse did, because someone has to do it. Furthermore, Nurse's isolated impact metrics are quite ugly, measuring his impact alone as incredibly negative for chance creation on the power play and on even-strength offense. Again, I think the talent and upside is there for Nurse to be an above average offensive defenseman, but I just don't think that his explosion this past season was entirely him. Still, though, being a good defenseman is more than just offense, and Nurse is a capable physical defensive defenseman. He has decent positioning skills and while he can sometimes be too slow to react to a play or make the physical choice to react to an opposing player rather than the best defensive play, he can still be trusted with second unit penalty kill time. He's a fine #4 defenseman at this point with legitimate upside to be the kind of defenseman that can anchor a second pairing.
A former top prospect, Darnell Nurse is finally on track to becoming the two-way defensive force Edmonton has needed since the departure of Chris Pronger. Playing with some strong offensive teammates and taking advantage of a defensive corps lacking in high-end talent, Darnell Nurse was able to have his career's best offensive season, posting a very good 41 points. Nurse is a good skater with strong puck moving abilities, and the fact that he's able to efficiently join the rush and help out with zone exits and zone entries makes him a good transitional defenseman, and contributes to his offensive production. What worries me about Nurse, though, is that I think his uptick in offensive production is more because of circumstance than actual newfound talent. Now, Nurse is a strong offensive player like I mentioned, with good skating abilities, and he defninitely can be a 40 point defenseman, but I hesitate to say that's where he's at now in a vacuum. Nurse got the benefit of increased ice time and top-end power play usage thanks to the injury to Oscar Klefbom, and he responded by having a significantly higher volume of chances to get assists thanks to the insane quality of his teammates, most importantly of them, Connor McDavid. Any defenseman that can facilitate give-and-go's with McDavid when he's pinned in the corners on a power play is going to rack up assists, and that's what Nurse did, because someone has to do it. Furthermore, Nurse's isolated impact metrics are quite ugly, measuring his impact alone as incredibly negative for chance creation on the power play and on even-strength offense. Again, I think the talent and upside is there for Nurse to be an above average offensive defenseman, but I just don't think that his explosion this past season was entirely him. Still, though, being a good defenseman is more than just offense, and Nurse is a capable physical defensive defenseman. He has decent positioning skills and while he can sometimes be too slow to react to a play or make the physical choice to react to an opposing player rather than the best defensive play, he can still be trusted with second unit penalty kill time. He's a fine #4 defenseman at this point with legitimate upside to be the kind of defenseman that can anchor a second pairing.
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