Edited Jul. 4, 2023 at 5:24 p.m.
Quoting: BeterChiarelli
I think a far more reasonable figure is between $7-8M for Nurse.
Taking a very rudimentary look at CapFriendly's Contract Comparable tool and maxing out the bottom five sliders (I wanted to ignore the AAV, Cap, Cap%, etc), we see that the five closest comparables (length, date, age, GP, points) to Nurse's deal are:
1. Colton Parayko ($6.5M cap hit)
2. Ryan Pulock ($6.15M cap hit)
3. Travis Sanheim ($6.25M cap hit)
4. Seth Jones ($9.5M cap hit)
5. Ryan Ellis ($6.25M cap hit)
I think every Oilers fan - and any hockey fan interested in seeing McDavid/Draisaitl with some playoff hardware - has a fair bit of rope to be choked at how much Nurse was extended to. The average cap hit of those above deals is $6.93M. Even if Holland offered him 20% on top of that average figure to account for his bridge deal, he would only be extended to a cap hit of $8.316M. Nearly a million in savings.
There's a lot of rhetoric surrounding Nurse being a very poor defenceman at the NHL level and every ounce of it stems from the value of his contract. He's a fine defender: a full season with Ekholm's support and a summer he can properly train (remember, he blew out his core this time last year) and I suspect we will see a Nurse much more reminiscent of the dominant workhorse that we saw in the World Juniors.
LD shouldn't be compared to RD IMO. I think which is more valuable is well established at this point.
He's not a poor defenseman, no. He's a good 2nd pairing LD, or a complementary player to a 1st pairing RD maybe, but not a #1. Nurse hasn't even been the best defenseman at anytime on the Oilers IMO.
Not getting a good summer of training is not an excuse for a 9.25 million player, come on now. He was the worst defenseman in SA/60 and GA/60 on the team in the playoffs, and that suspension... he's got an A on his sweater man.
The rhetoric is caused by Oilers management/ownership messing up, not Darnell though. Who in their right mind could expect him to turn down more money.
I always think back to a story I read about Kris Russell. Him and/or his agent in an interview said they weren't sure if the Oilers were even going to offer him a contract. I think probably because Oesterle was around and playing very well in the AHL then, and Klefbom/Nurse right. But, they said the Oilers called after no negotiations or anything and offered him the 4x4 contract, and let Jordan Oesterle walk instead. How the Oilers have been run in a nutshell right there lol.