Quoting: Nhl_oilers
If we make the Nurse-Bear pairing, we will for sure lose. Barrie is way better, and better with Nurse. Bear played bad the whole game, not just 15 minutes, and it’s not just this game, it has been the whole season. I definitely disagree with you, and I believe we should trade Bear immediately. He doesn’t fit with Edmonton.
I can't find the numbers that include the forwards (which probably skews *every* pairing to the positive given that sweet McDavid icetime) so hang tight while I make this point:
Nurse and Bear together over 43GP (257:53TOI) have a CF% of 54% via NaturalStatTrick. This is statistically Edmonton's strongest pairing at 5v5 when considering the minutes it eats: everything else that's outperformed them has done so on a scale of time less than a period in length. The only reason that TOI spread over the GP equals six minutes is because it's the pairing Tippett has defaulted to in the third period of almost every game the Oilers have held a lead in or have been tied after 40. This is the pairing he trusts the most when it matters and they need to be kept together. Kulikov-Larsson have posted a 55.19% but for only about 14 minutes per night.
The Koekkoek-Barrie pairing has put up the same CF% numbers as the Nurse-Barrie pairing has during the playoffs thus far: this is spectacular. Great news. This gives Edmonton the automatic opportunity to have three strong defense pairings. Nurse-Bear has a history of working. Either Kulikov-Larsson or Jones-Larsson is a strong second pair. None of the possible pairings of Kulikov-Bear, Kulikov-Bouchard, Koekkoek-Bouchard, or Jones-Bear are good enough to turn to in an elimination game: all of them lose the shot battle at evens. Jones-Bouchard or Koekkoek-Bear have not been trialed as much as a pairing (very little sample size) so you have to take their gaudy CF% numbers from the regular season into consideration. Koekkoek-Bear in the playoffs is only breaking even. Tippett - for the lack of any better reason - doesn't trust either Bouchard or Jones enough to use them consistently in the regular season and isn't going to turn to them in an elimination game when the rest of the roster is healthy.
In close, the history of Nurse-Bear suggests their getting shelled last night isn't typical. This is a strong pairing. Toss a coin on whether or not you want Jones in over Kulikov to play with Larsson as their effectiveness is about equal. The real benefit to dropping Barrie down with Koekkoek is that it's a load Barrie is clearly much more capable of handling: it makes Edmonton's bottom pair exponentially better without any real detractions from the other two pairings. Down a goal or in a hot swing of momentum? Sure, give Nurse-Barrie a shift or two together. I don't think we need to be so rigid in the idea of the two NOT playing together: their shot numbers - even if they are being vaulted by the McDavid line - are still very much in the positive. Use it if it's appropriate, just like reuniting Draisaitl and McDavid.
I'm not against trading Bear in a smart trade. The idea of giving him away for nothing substantial reminds me of the Petry trade: he's the new whipping boy (I'll reiterate that I think a lot (not all) of the fans that have turned on he and Jones because they aren't white: we're still in Alberta after all) for no real reason, has phenomenal underlying numbers, the fans zoom in on two or three exclusive windows where he's at his worst over a period of less than 2 games, and calls for the first bus out of town grow louder. If Bear's the piece that nets the Oilers a bonafide top-six winger or a Gibson-esque starter, I'll toy with the idea. A third liner or draft picks? Piss off. He's better than that.