Episode # 2 - Breaking Down the Darnell Nurse Trade

Join Jeff Randhawa as he discusses the Edmonton Oilers trading Darnell Nurse, emphasizing the team's gain in cap flexibility while acknowledging the difficulty in replacing Nurse's leadership and experience. 

To learn more or to provide feedback, contact Jeff at slapshotsandsoundwaves@gmail.com

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Good morning, afternoon, or evening from wherever you are listening to me today. Welcome back to Slapshots and Soundwaves. I'm your host, Jeff Randau. So I want to this week's show, I want to break down the Darnell nurse trade from the summer. And it's I think it's a lot more complex than people really made it out to be for a couple of reasons. I personally, and I'm gonna start off right by saying this, I'm a nurse, Darnell nurse apologist, so you can just take that for what it is. And and if you think that I'm my my take this week is slightly biased, that's fine. But I just want to put that out there right away. That um I always really liked Darnell Nurse as a as a player. I thought he um played a lot of hard minutes, um, he was tough, he stuck up for his teammates. Was he perfect? Absolutely not. Was he overpaid 100%? Um, but I I just feel that what we are going to be missing from him is gonna be felt at certain points of the season. I don't think it's all doom and gloom, but I just don't think it was as easy as a trade to make, and there's probably a reason why it took so long, and there's also a reason uh that he that we were able to get you know a couple of good prospects and were able to get rid of his entire salary. Uh I said this a couple of years ago, and again, you know, this podcast is quite new, so I have to develop my history and my reputation, but this was something I had mentioned with a lot of my friends and in conversation about you know this Darnell nurse is that I wouldn't be surprised if the Oilers trade him and don't have to retain a single cent of this salary. Um mostly because I yeah, A, I'm a nurse apologist and I really like them as a player, but also because there's 32 teams in this league, and some of them are going to need a player like Darnell Nurse, who is, you know, in his early 30s, has a lot of experience, plays big minutes, sticks up for his teammates, and as the salary cap continues to move up, his 9.25 million dollar salary will slowly continue to take less and less of a team's overall cap. So there's a lot of positives to have a player like him on your team, and I think San Jose, for where they're at right now, this is a really good trade for them because they need like the Oilers had in the early 2010s and and up to even recently, they have a lot of great young forwards and some pretty good prospect defensemen, but they really need guys like Truba and Darnell Nurse to settle things down for three to four years while these younger forwards develop and make a name for themselves in their in this league. Celebrini has done that, right? So but the other guys, you know, that he plays alongside with um really need some protection, and guys like Truba and Nurse will do that. So I think it was really win-win for everyone, but as as this podcast goes on, um, we're you're gonna see that you know it wasn't as simple, and we did lose a very good player, and we lost a few elements of his game that it's gonna have to be by committee, which isn't always easy. So let's dive right into it. So on July 1st, 2026, the Edmonton Oilers traded Darnell Nerves to the San Jose Sharks for Shakir Makmadoulin and the rights to Zachary Sharp, who is currently playing in western Michigan, uh, was a teammate of Owen Michaels, and that's actually one little thing that people maybe might not know is that Bowman and his team were uh scouting Owen Michaels and then saw Sharp there as well. And I think that's really good scouting, is that when you go scout a player and you discover maybe one or two other ones that could fit your team, and they were able to, you know, watch Sharp, see what he can do, and then have him packaged up in this trade for Darnell Darnell Nurse as well. So that's just a little bit of an aside. But um, yeah, and then most importantly for Edmonton in this trade, they moved Nurse's entire contract without retaining any salary. Like, that's huge. 9.25 million gone. So that was their huge benefit, and they were able to get a couple of players, like um Shakir Makmadoulin, he can play either left or right, and he had a fairly good season with the uh with um San Jose last year on a team that's kind of middling, you know. He had 12 points, five goals, seven assists, and 50 games, and uh, you know, that's he's still 24, so he's still developing, right? So we have to give him some time, but we we got a little bit younger, and you know, for the most part, you know, I think everyone just really wants to concentrate on the cap space, is you know, it gives the oilers greater flexibility, you know. We were able to extend or replace key players. Um we can look at improving our depth scoring now. Um, at the time before some of the signings that happened, you could also use that money to address goaltending concerns and and build a lineup around Connor and Leon in just in the overall sense. So I then, you know, so that's stuff that we just were people were saying before Nurse got traded. And so right away, right afterwards, we were able to sign Defenseman Ryan Shea to a five-year contract worth $20 million at $4 million AAV, and also able to re-sign Kasperi Kapanin to a one-year contract at $2.6 million. Um, another forward, Matthew Joseph, in a one-year contract, one million. Um, he's a PK specialist, so he can take a few minutes away from Ryan Eugene Hopkins and maybe even get Connor McDavid off the PK, even though I liked watching him on the PK. It's I think the less Connor plays uh per game during the regular season is always going to be a good thing for when the playoffs roll around. And then, you know, a little while after the trade, we were able to um sign the young defenseman that we got received from San Jose, Shakir Makmadoulin, for a two-year contract at five three point five, pardon me, three point five million dollar deal at an average of uh 1.75 million AAV. And then the big one that came later in the day in July 1st, um, and the reason why I kind of put it at the bottom of this list is Frederick Anderson. You know, we have a goalie, despite what you may think about him, he was 13-2 during the playoffs. He he had a look uh he had an injury during the Stanley Cup Finals. Um, and we got him for a one-year deal at 1 million AEV for this year, and there is um $1.8 million in potential bonuses, but you know, I'll I'll count that for next year. Um, and we want him to get all those bonuses because that means we win the Stanley Cup this year. So, you know, and 1.8 like million, it's not bad, like you know, and the bonus structure isn't as bad as as someone like you know, like the Connor Brown or even um Matt Zuccarello in LA, and surprise, surprise, Ken Holland signed both of those guys. There's none of this, like you know, you only play nine games and or ten games and you get the whole bonus. It it there's structure to it. With with Frederick Anderson, and I'm just reading it off my notes here, that he gets 600k for 10 games. And remember, for a goalie, it's pretty different. We have a three goalie system, so that might not happen for a while. And then, and if it does happen, that means he's doing really well, or the opposite is that we have a lot of injuries in net right now, so there's always two sides to a coin. Um, he gets the other 400 uh if he plays two hundred uh twenty games, and then this is where it gets interesting. He he will get 200k for each round that the Oilers win, where he plays 50% or more of the games. Now that is a really solid uh you know bonus structure because now we're he has some incentive. Like this is what bonus structures used to be, right? You had to hit a certain target of games, um, of goals mostly, assists, right? You had to show your performance, it wasn't just showing up. I don't know how this went so sideways, where a player will get a s a certain amount of money just for the games that they play. And I get it if a player has come back from a a long-term injury, you know, someone like John Klingberg or, you know, the aforementioned Connor Brown. I'm not sure what Matt Zuccharello's situation was. Um, but this is what I really like. This bonus structure is that he, if he's playing, that means he's doing well. Or, like I said, on the other side of the coin, we really need him because we have some injuries. You know, Levy are not playing that well. But it's good to have a goalie like Frederick Anderson, who's won a Stanley Cup, who's had some level of success in the NHL. And to me, this goalie structure, and I'm getting off on a little bit of a side note here, but the goalie structure, I really like it because we have Tristan Jari, who has really something to prove this year after a couple of tough seasons. I thought Tristan Jari had a really great start with the Oilers. His numbers would have been a little bit better if um we had played a little bit defense uh better defensively in some games that we won, but in the last minute or two, we really didn't play very well in front of him, and he let in a goal and kind of hurt his goals against and um uh save percentage. And then, you know, so we have him in he's our you know, we have him for two more years at a fairly reasonable contract, considering what the direction that contracts are going in right now. And we also have you know a young up-and-coming goalie like Levy, who you know just there wasn't enough room for him in Buffalo anymore. So we had to give up an asset in the third-round pick, but he's 24, he's very young, and and has the benefit of learning from two goalies that have been in the league for a while. One who has won a Stanley Cup and one who's just been in the league for a while. So I I only see positives. I really think the three goalies are gonna work well with each other in succeeding um for the Edmonton Oilers. That's just my prediction, and maybe a topic for uh another podcast in the future, but uh, I'm excited about that. But anyways, going back now, so that's one, two, three, four, five players that we were able to sign after trading Darnell nurse, and that comes to salary of ten, you know, ten point three five million. So we only had to spend um outside of nurse's contract, one point two one point ten, pardon me. And that's huge. Like to for us to get the those type of players that are able to fit a need that we had in every position, like we got Kapanen coming back, is great. He the the guy had a great playoff, two great playoffs in a row. Is he as durable as we would like him to be? No, but you know, he he brings it when the big games come, he scored some big goals, so you can't deny that. Matthew Joseph coming in and just helping out with the penalty killing would be huge. Just for the reasons I said, like you can get Ryan Nugent Hopkins and Connor McDavid, maybe even Matt Savoy off the PK, and you have um Jason Dickinson and Matthew Joseph, and you know, taking up some of those minutes. I'm not saying take those guys off maybe completely, but it's just nice to have some backup and some guys that really specialize in that in that because our penalty killing really, really struggled last year. So with all with those signings, I'm feeling pretty good. Like I said in the podcast, um, the last podcast, I've never been this relaxed during the summer. Maybe some of you are not as relaxed as I am, but I'm just feeling really good about our our lineup and the fact that we were able to move Darnell Nurse's entire contract without salary retention, like I'm not surprised, but it's still significant because a lot of people didn't think it was gonna happen. And the like, you know, I just couldn't foresee a wor a trade where we would have to keep even two or three million. Like it just didn't make sense. If we had to retain anything on nurse to that amount, I would have just kept them, to be honest. Like, why? Why give up a player like that that, like I said at the very top, that takes up a lot of minutes, um, is tough, is a good teammate, plays you know, w quite well for the most part, makes some mistakes, but when you're playing 20 to 25 minutes, guess what? You're gonna make mistakes. And I'll tell you this much, none of those mistakes, or very few of them, happened at the beginning or the middle of a shift. It's usually at the end of a shift. Any of anyone who's played any type of sport knows that that especially hockey, that it's those last 20 to 30 seconds when you get caught out there and you really want to get off, but you can't, that's when mistakes happen. We've seen it a hundred times, probably a thousand times. So it's really the fact that the only way this was gonna work is if we traded the whole contract. I'm glad Stan Bowman stuck to his guns and and got the best deal. I know we had to trade within a division rival, and and also let's give credit to Darnell Nurris for opening up his um the teams that he was willing to be traded to, because at the beginning it was just uh Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Boston, and and and the rumor is I know that there's been some reports, but uh I won't confirm anything. But Boston wanted us to retain, and also they were gonna send Zodoroff back to us, and fortunately, um Zodoroff, if the rumor is true, you know, uh rejected the trade because of his uh no trade clause. And hey, if that's all true, thank you very much, Nikita Zodoroff, because you just did us a great favor because I like this trade way better. We need it to get younger, we need it to um have a defenseman similar to Ty Emperson, who has got some minutes and reps in the NHL, but just needs to have you know maybe some bottom pair minutes still and and learn from guys like Eckholm and Connor Murphy and Jake Wallman and Evan Bouchard. Right? I know people often forget about Evan Bouchard when it comes to defensive play because he's so great offensively, but he's he's fairly good defensively, but similar to Nurse, you know, sometimes, sometimes, a lot of times, make some plays that really make you shake your head. But I'm I'm feeling much better about our defensive structure, but we're still gonna miss Darnell Nurse. There's gonna be days, games, nights, where we're gonna remember him, and and I think he's gonna do really well in San Jose. And that perfectly leads me into the second part of this podcast where I think we're gonna we're gonna miss Darnell Nurse more than um than we think we are. Like in right now, we're probably a lot of people are happy that that he's he's been traded, but uh I am one of those maybe in the minority where we're I think we're gonna miss his level of play. In San Jose, you know, he will be able to play now top pair minutes I'm suspecting with Jacob Truba. He can bring physicality, and he's providing veteran leadership. Despite everything you want to say about him, he's played in the NHL for 12 years, you know, went to the Stanley Cup Finals back to back, played, you know, over, I think close to 800 games, over 100 playoff games on a San Jose Sharks team that is wet behind the years. Actually, not not even wet behind the years, soaking wet behind the years. These guys, some of them are just in year one or two of their NHL careers, right? And they need a guy like Darnell Nurris, who's experienced and not just on the ice, experienced in life. You know, he's he's married, he has kids, he's you know, responsible on and off the ice, and they need that level of of maturity. So I think he's gonna do really well. I I think he was he was good to pick the San Jose Sharks because I think that's the perfect situation for him. I know that there was talk that Anaheim wanted uh him as well, but I think I think San Jose is just a much, much better fit for him. Because now that's just like my opinion, but like let's look at the numbers. I'm just looking at a stat total right now, and you know, games played. This is off hockey db, so uh games played 798, goals 88, assists 236, uh points 324, you know, playoff games uh an even 100 and playoff points 29. So among Euler's defensemen, over that he he's played over the time that he has been in the NHL, he was second in games played, fifth in points, first in block shots with 1,467, and uh first in hits with 1,692, and that's from NHL.com. So the the big one, like you know, the hits, who is gonna take over the hit patrol that he he brought to the game every night? And you know, even though this trade makes sense financially, uh you know, we're gonna see his we're gonna feel his absence, like I've said a few times already in this podcast, he was one of the most reliable oilers over the last four seasons, and I'm just checking off here on Hockey DB again, uh over four seasons, 22-23, he played 82 games, 23-24, he played 81 games, 24-25, he played 76 games, 25-26, he played 82 games. So that's out of 328 games, he played 321 of them. So he was always available, like he's literally available 90 to 99% of the time. And we've seen, like, you know, we've had Jake Wallman now this year, and I really like him as a player, but he's injured quite a bit because he plays a very heavy style and it takes a toll on your body. And Nurse wasn't injured that much at all. I never, you know, I think maybe that's why we noticed him so much, and maybe it was a detriment to his uh to the way we felt about him because he was always. There, that we always saw his mistakes, and he was never out of the lineup for very long, so we never missed him. Like, think about that. We never had an opportunity to miss him because he was always there. He was a heavy minute defender, he had to handle all the difficult defensive assignments, regularly playing more than 20 minutes a game against the other team's top competition that wears you down after a while. And you know, in uh even some of the worst critics, you know, I I just think about it, even how much no matter what you think about him, he you have to admit that he absorbed some of the toughest minutes on the roster. And I know a lot of people look at his points, but he got little to none power play time throughout his entire Oiler career. When he came, Oscar Clefbaum was on the power play after Oscar Oscar Clefbaum um was injured, the Oilers brought in Tyson Barry, and after Tyson Barry was traded, the Oilers automatically moved Evan Bouchard. So and we know that for his power play unit, they pretty much don't get off the ice until they score. So maybe he would get per power play, I would say 15 to 20 seconds of actual like ice time on the power play. That's not a lot to to be to pump up your stats. And he, like I said, the two big stats, you know, the block shots and the hits, those numbers, they they don't always score. They well, they don't show up on the score sheet. No one thinks about that that much. You don't you you see the hit, you don't count the hit. You count the goals, assists, and the plus-minuses, but you don't count the hits or the block shots during the game. And that's what we're gonna miss about Darnell Nurse. And mostly, you know, for me, he was an alternate captain, he was a core member of two Stanley Cup final teams. I know that first 2024, he had a rough one, and last year he had a rough one. But also in game four of last year or of the 2025 season, uh Stanley Cup final, he scored a big goal in in game four when we were down 3-0. People always seem to forget that. He did, like, you know, he's he scored some goals, and I think even in game four of the the 2024 season when we routed the Florida Panthers, he scored a goal, and he he just never had a chance really to show his offensive ability because defense was always first with him. And I just want to go back really quickly to an article that I found back from June 23rd, 2013. It was when um Patrick King from sportsnet.ca was reviewing the top 30 traff, uh, top 30 draft picks from 2013, and Darnell Nurse came in at number seven. And I'm just gonna list a few things here that um that he said about Darnell Nurse. And first of all, I'm just gonna go with the stats because that seems what most popular with everyone. So his final see his season before he got drafted, the season that he got drafted, pardon me, he played with the Sioux with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, he played 68 games, 12 goals, 29 assists, 41 points, 15, plus 15, um, what's this plus minus, and 116 penalty minutes. Um this is his darn this is his scouting report. This is what Patrick King wrote about him. Nurse has great size at 6'4, 185 pounds with great mobility. His offensive game really took off in the second season, improving from his 10-point rookie season to 41 points as a sophomore. Nurse's confidence grew in his ability to rush the puck up the ice, though despite the numbers, he's not a natural point producer. He plays a sound, calculated defensive game thanks to his long wingspan and competitiveness. Nurse should develop into a stud shutdown defender. And here's the next one. And remember, this is before the draft. Teams who might be interested in Darnell Nurse. Nurse's mammoth potential as a defensive defenseman will be appealing to many teams in the draft. Among those should be the Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, Buffalo Sabres, and Philadelphia Flyers. All who could use some defensive depth among their prospects. This is a comment that was made. Um, some people think that there is a big gap between Seth Jones and the next best defenseman in the draft. I'm not one of those people, affirms Ross McLean, head scout of International Scouting Services. Nurse isn't quite as elite or poised as Jones, but can still be an explosive offensive player with strong defensive capabilities, but adds an element of toughness and fire that isn't presence present in Jones' game. What I like, what I really like about Nurse is that he is still fairly raw and has a ton of developmental that can still occur. He is athletic and confident character who can do a bit of everything. I'll just end it right there. So that that that that was all from Patrick King's article on June 23rd, 2013, um, when he was reviewing NHL draft put um draft prospects for uh the 2013 NHL entry draft. So I just wanted to end it with that because we got what we did drafted from Darnell Nurse. Everyone was expecting the minute that he signed that big deal, it was like, okay, well, because I know that he signed it right after when um during the the the the 2021-21 2020-2021 season where he got 16 goals. But remember, he that was playing against pretty much the same five or six teams over and over again. We had nine games against Ottawa, that which which was a team at that time was not very good, um, against Calgary, Vancouver, all teams that were struggling. Um, so those stats were a little bit skewed, but you know, I remember talking to a few of my friends, and um at the time they're they're Canuck fans, you know, remember I live in Vancouver, and they were asking me about the when the when Darnell Nurse signed the the big contract. He goes, they go, What do you think about it? And I'm like, Well, it's a lot, but the thing is, if you let them go, then all of a sudden you're looking for Darnell Nurse again, right? And that was really I think how a lot of Euler fans, and maybe even the Euler management felt at the time, is like, well, if we let, like, yeah, it's an overpayment, but how are you gonna replace them? Right? And it's gonna be difficult. And uh now we're here we are, four years later. Yes, we got some players that I I listed off, and I'm excited about all of them, like the two prospects that we got in the trade, and then some of the players that we signed um using Darnell Nurse's salary cap space, but it's gonna be hard. I'm I'm telling you, like I'm I'm not uh as optimistic as everyone else. I I do still like the way our team is set up in terms of the business management side of it and the and the roster management side of it, but I'm still wondering who's gonna take over Darnell Nurse's leadership, his toughness, and who's gonna make that many hits and block shots. Um, it's gonna be interesting. So, like I said before, I'm not too stressed. Well, I'm more relaxed now in this offseason than I ever have been, but that is a concern I have. And we can just, you know, the bottom line is after everything I've said today, trade was likely a win-win. Um, the Oilers were able to move all of Darnell Nurse's salary cap hit and require the flexibility that they needed to reshape the roster around Connor and Leon and a championship window for Nurse. He gets a fresh start after 12 seasons in Edmonton and an opportunity to play some big minutes on a and be a veteran on a young Sharks team. But like I just talked about, uh, we may quickly discover that replacing his almost 800 games of experience, durability, top pair minutes, block shots, hits is going to be much harder than replacing the contract itself. Join me again next week when I break down the three goalie system that the oilers have created and how it could benefit all three players in their careers and most importantly, bring some stability to the Oilers net for the first time in many, many years. As always, I hope you all had as much fun listening to the podcast today as I did recording it. Until next time, I'm Jeff Randowa, and thanks for taking the time to listen to Slapshots and Soundwaves. Have a great day, everyone.