Ken Holland obviously cared about his number one defenseman, who in my opinion, has been significantly overpaid. Yes, Nurse is a good defenseman who is very versatile and is used in all sorts of ways, but is he better than the last few defensemen who received a huge contract?
Seth Jones, Dougie Hamilton, Zach Werenski and Cale Makar have all recently received $9 million per season. Without taking anything away from Darnell Nurse, I would take the four aforementioned backs to build my team before him.
Although Ken Holland has Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid on his roster, Edmonton does not seem to be the destination of choice for players in general. The Oilers' general manager had no choice but to bring out the big guns in greenbacks to convince Nurse to stay in Alberta, as he would have become an unrestricted free agent next year. It's a very unpopular decision, but what's done is done. Hopefully for Ken Holland, this contract will not hurt the organization in the long run...
Nurse had 36 points, including 16 goals, in 56 games last year with the Oilers. The 26-year-old from Ontario was the seventh overall pick in the 2013 NHL Entry Draft.
