Oilers' Darnell Nurse discovers new level of play at the perfect time

EDMONTON — Darnell Nurse, flawless.

There.

Until this very moment, those three words had never appeared in the same sentence — by a hockey writer, at least.

When the Edmonton Oilers lumbered into the 2024-25 season, the hockey world looked at their seven defencemen — with three departed players off last year’s blueline — and opined on all the improvements necessary for Edmonton to repeat last spring’s four-round playoff journey.

They’d better make an early-season trade. They should save up their cap space — get Evander Kane on LTIR, stat! — and get two defencemen at the trade deadline. Or this beauty: The Oilers will never get close to the Final again — not with that D-corps.

There was one upgrade, however, that nobody had on their bingo card: “What if Darnell Nurse finds an entirely new level, and becomes Edmonton’s best defenceman?”

Yes, a funny thing happened on the way to the Christmas break. Darnell Nurse found a game we’ve never before seen.

He is, to date, the Oilers' best, most trustworthy defender, having been on the ice for just 13 even-strength goals against in 566 minutes. His goals for percentage at five-on-five is the best on the team, at 61.76 (via Natural Stat Trick).

“I think it's just taken me to this point in my career to completely believe in it, and not care about anything else,” Nurse, 29, told Sportsnet before the break. “I'm not going to be a perfect player, and a lot of times that's what you try to be.”

Driven by an eight-year contract with an AAV of $9.25 million — it runs for five more seasons after this one — Nurse became that classic overpaid athlete whose game will always be judged against his salary. It is, perhaps, an impossible match for Nurse.

“Darnell, offensively, will never justify his money,” said Oilers assistant coach Paul Coffey. “But as a complete player, he'll do it two or three times over — which he's doing right now. He’s very comfortable with himself right now.”

“My game comes best when I'm on my toes and being aggressive,” said Nurse. “When I’m too far on the passenger side or sitting back on my heels, that's not effective at all.”

How does it work that a player just a few weeks from turning 30 — on Feb. 4 — can find his best game this late in the process?

Well, it’s complicated.

Nurse comes from Canadian sports royalty. His father Richard played 103 CFL games for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats from 1990-95. Nurse’s uncle, former quarterback Donovan McNabb, had his number retired by the Philadelphia Eagles.

His mother played basketball at McMaster in Hamilton. Sister Kia plays in the WNBA, while his cousin Sarah stars in the PWHL.

The physical tools, the athletic DNA, was a gift. The rest had to be learned, and earned.

“Since I've been, like, five — ever since I can remember — my dad has always talked to me like a man,” Nurse said. “He's always taught me: ‘You’ve got to believe in yourself; You’ve got to stand up for yourself; if you want to play professional sports, it's easy to make it. It's way harder to stay.’”

Will he raise his two boys the same way?

“Yeah, I think so,” Nurse said. “There are so many lessons that I've taken away from (Richard). I always have his voice in the back of my mind, saying, ‘You're capable of being at your best at all times.’”

The voice heard over the summer, however, belonged to Coffey, the coach who hands out the ice time for the Oilers defence corps.

“We had a long conversation this summer,” Coffey said. “He said, ‘Somewhere, along the way, I’ve lost your trust in me. I'm going to get it back.’ I said, ‘Let's (bleep)ing go!’

“I remember him saying to me, ‘How do you want me to play? What do you want from me?’ I said, ‘I want it all,’” Coffey recalled. “'I want you to defend. I want you to be offensive. I want you to be a leader, which you are. I want you to shoot pucks.' I'm not going to tell him, ‘I just want you to kill penalties and be a (hard-ass) out there.’ I want it all.”

Ironically, trying to do it all has always been Nurse’s issue.

He has size, at six-foot-four, 215 pounds, and he is an above-average, top-tier skater who can join the play in a flash. He can also play mean, and when he fights, he wins more than he loses. He shoots the puck well. He can pass it just fine.

But, somehow, the sum of all those parts has never added up the way we thought it should. Somehow, Nurse always found a way to make the game harder than it had to be. That might just be the mental hurdle he has finally cleared, perhaps.

“I think it's just taken me to this point in my career to completely believe in it, and not care about anything else. I'm not going to be a perfect player, and a lot of times that's what you try to be,” Nurse admitted.  “I remember one time (Coffey) said, ‘When you don't move your feet, you're useless — just like I was.’”

Since the 2018-19 season, only 11 NHL defencemen have more even-strength points than Nurse’s 192. This season, among defencemen who play over 21 minutes per night, Nurse sits 15th, at plus-11.

He seldom plays with the Connor McDavid line, and gets next to no power-play time. But since Nov. 18 — when Edmonton began putting its game together after a slow start — Nurse leads the Oilers with 20:01 of even-strength ice time per game.

He’s got three goals, 15 points, and two scraps this season, as Nurse rediscovers an intimidating edge that had gone missing.

“That's the ebbs and flows of finding your game,” he said. “You go through stretches where maybe you're thinking, ‘I just want to be offensive.’ Or, killing time and space. Or, ‘I want to be on the ice.’

“But (intimidating) is an element of my game that I can bring — that I enjoy bringing. It's one thing when you don't like doing it, but sometimes I do enjoy doing it.”

That must be the football player in him, right?

“No,” Nurse replied. “I think it’s the Hamilton in me.”