Darnell Nurse finally addressed the way his Edmonton run ended, and he did it wearing a Sharks sweater this week.
A San Jose reporter asked whether he'd lost his passion for the game by the end of it. That's a heavy thing to put in front of a man at his first camp.
Nah, he said. He's always loved hockey, and it doesn't matter where you're playing. He loves the grind of it.
He called his Edmonton years fortunate and pointed to friendships that will last a lifetime. Then came the honest half.
It was time for a change. His words, and nobody put them in his mouth.
That last season was rough. He played all 82 games and managed 24 points.
He finished at a -12 on a $9,250,000 cap hit. That number is why this was always going to end somewhere else.
Darnell Nurse admits it was time for a change after leaving Edmonton
The Sharks already had Jacob Trouba at $8,000,000 and Dmitry Orlov at $6,500,000 before any of this.
Orlov closed the year at a -28. That group was never short on experience or short on money.
San Jose allowed 292 goals last season. Stacking another expensive veteran onto that back end is a curious way to fix it.
They finished 39-35-8 and landed 22nd overall. Nobody is confusing this roster with a contender.
Macklin Celebrini put up 115 points on a $975,000 cap hit. He's the reason anybody in that building sleeps well.
Ryan Warsofsky has run the bench since June 2024. He now sorts a defence corps assembled from other clubs' discarded paper.
Edmonton got out from under it. Stan Bowman cleared the sheet, and Mike Babcock spent Saturday asking publicly for more depth.
The Oilers still allowed 269 goals last season. The problem didn't leave town with the contract.
He also finished at a +5 across his final 10 games. Nothing about him looked broken on the way out the door.
He added a +4 over 6 postseason games without a point on the sheet. Quiet, and not useless.
So does a fresh start fix anything? Changing cities to escape a contract works like replacing the wallpaper when the roof is the actual problem.
Nurse got the reset he wanted. Grier got a blue line carrying more salary than sorting, and October decides that one whether anybody likes the answer or not.
Source : Darnell Nurse Pushes Back On One Persistent Rumor From His Oilers Exit
Were the Oilers right to move on from Darnell Nurse's contract?
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