{"id":498255,"date":"2026-03-11T14:42:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T14:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/498255\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T14:42:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T14:42:37","slug":"oilers-explored-moving-darnell-nurse-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/498255\/","title":{"rendered":"Oilers Explored Moving Darnell Nurse \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Oilers were quiet on deadline day, doing their bidding earlier in the week by acquiring\u00a0Colton Dach<\/a>,\u00a0Jason Dickinson<\/a>, and\u00a0Connor Murphy<\/a> in a pair of deals with the Blackhawks. That doesn\u2019t mean they didn\u2019t discuss other options. One of them was opening the door to trying to move struggling defender\u00a0Darnell Nurse<\/a>\u00a0and his anchor contract, David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period<\/a> reports.<\/p>\n

While nothing got close, it doesn\u2019t appear the Oilers are done toying with the idea. \u201cI can\u2019t pinpoint how deep trade talks actually went, but that\u2019s a name to watch this summer, [no-movement clause] and all,\u201d Pagnotta wrote.<\/p>\n

Nurse\u2019s contract has been a point of contention in Edmonton nearly from the moment it was signed. In August 2021, he landed an eight-year, $74MM commitment with a $9.25MM cap hit that didn\u2019t kick in until the 2022-23 campaign. He was coming off a career performance, finishing seventh in Norris Trophy voting, but it came in a much smaller sample than usual during the shortened 2021 COVID year. In the years since, the 31-year-old has never come close to sniffing the 0.64 points per game rate he set that year and has seen his possession impacts consistently decline as well.<\/p>\n

The deal also includes no-move protection for the life of the deal, as Pagnotta discusses. That means the Oilers can\u2019t waive or trade him without his approval. That full protection runs through next season. On July 1, 2027, the NMC remains in effect, preventing them from waiving him, but the full trade restriction gets dropped. He\u2019ll then have a modified no-trade clause with only a 10-team no-trade list for the final three seasons of the deal. That removes one obstacle toward moving him if it\u2019s something they still want to explore in the 2027 offseason, but getting someone to take him on at his full cap hit without a significant sweetener will remain prohibitive, considering his continuous decline, even in a rising cap environment.<\/p>\n

Edmonton could retain some money to make the rest of his contract more appealing. That\u2019s far preferable to a buyout, which, while technically possible, is nonsensical. The structure of Nurse\u2019s contract ensures he\u2019s paid mostly in signing bonuses from 2026-27 onward, meaning a buyout won\u2019t save them any more than $1MM on average over the next four years.<\/p>\n

This season, Nurse has seen his workload drop to third-pairing duties at even-strength behind\u00a0Mattias Ekholm<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Jake Walman<\/a>\u00a0among the Oilers\u2019 contingent of lefties. In 64 games, he has a 7-13\u201320 scoring line with a -13 rating in 64 games. His 0.31 points per game are his lowest since his age-21 season, as is his 20:52 average time on ice. He\u2019s seen a steep drop in deployment from both special teams units, no longer a factor at all on Edmonton\u2019s power play, while averaging less than a minute and a half per game shorthanded. His 48.3% Corsi share at 5-on-5 also trails that of Ekholm\u2019s, Walman\u2019s, and Evan Bouchard<\/a>\u2018s despite the most sheltered offensively favorable deployment of his career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Oilers were quiet on deadline day, doing their bidding earlier in the week by acquiring\u00a0Colton Dach,\u00a0Jason Dickinson,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[1809,146,5],"class_list":{"0":"post-498255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-darnell-nurse","9":"tag-edmonton-oilers","10":"tag-hockey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116211072758105869","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}