Ryan Shea signed with the Edmonton Oilers as the direct answer to Darnell Nurse walking out the door, and the early math backs the move.
This week a hockey stats account, @mathewjdp, dropped a thread ranking all 271 NHL defensemen from last season across offense, defense, penalty kill and penalty minutes.
Shea came out on top in almost every category. Nurse didn't.
On offense, Shea ranked 56th among all NHL defensemen. Nurse checked in at 205th.
On the penalty kill, the gap turns embarrassing. Shea ranked 5th in the league. Nurse ranked 257th.
Defense was tighter, Shea at 197th and Nurse at 214th, but even there Shea held the edge.
Penalties tell a similar story. Shea sat 12th, Nurse 91st.
Now look at the actual production. Shea posted 6 goals and 29 assists for 35 points across 80 games with a plus-30 rating this year.
Nurse finished with 7 goals and 17 assists for 24 points over 82 games, going minus-12.
Cap hit gap turns this into a no-brainer for Edmonton
Nurse carries a cap hit of 9,250,000 dollars in San Jose. Shea signed for 900,000.
That's not a rounding error. That's a starter's salary buying a backup's production, and Bowman found a replacement making a tenth of the cost who outproduced him almost across the board.
Is Nurse washed? That's the wrong question. The right one is why Edmonton was paying elite money for penalty kill numbers that ranked near the bottom of the league.
The Oilers went 3-1 against San Jose this season, including a 5-3 win on March 17 and a 5-2 win on April 8, both with Shea already patrolling their blue line.
Edmonton finished the year 41-30-11 for 93 points, ranked 14th overall. San Jose finished 39-35-8 for 86 points, ranked 22nd.
Nurse still put up two shorthanded assists for the Sharks, so it's not like he brought nothing north or, in this case, south. But the special-teams tape doesn't lie.
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Bowman's front office bet that a cheaper, PK-savvy defenseman could replace a big name, and the numbers so far say he won. Whether that holds when Shea faces tougher usage next season is the part nobody's answering yet.
Did Stan Bowman win the Darnell Nurse trade?
Also read on Markerzone.com:
Huge addition by John Chayka: 'He's a really good defenseman and he's got great character'
