What is Darnell Nurse’s high end? What is a reasonable projection for him moving forward? These two questions are not the same at all. One is where we think he could possibly get to based on his range of skills. The other is what we can project based on his results. Nurse is tantalizingly skilled physically but has failed to translate that into unqualified success at the NHL level.

I don’t know how much stock I put into the “300 game” marker for young defensemen. It’s an arbitrary number that has gained traction among many circles that says we need 300 games from an NHL blueliner to know what he is at that level. What I do know, is that after 115 regular season and a baker’s dozen in the playoffs, I still am unsure of where Nurse will end up. He’s an NHL player for sure. I know that. But, is he a 3rd pairing guy? A 3-4? Can he be a number 2?

Darnell Nurse has a great set of skills and attributes. He’s 22 years old, 6’4” and officially listed at 220 pounds. I think he will probably fill out further because he still looks like a beanpole. I haven’t seen him since the end of the season so I anticipate seeing what he’s done in the summer. Despite the hulking size, he skates incredibly well. You might expect someone 4 inches shorter and 20 lbs lighter by the way he can range all over the ice. This combination of size and skating ability will keep him in the NHL for as long as his body can handle it. GMs will ALWAYS have time for this.

To go along with that size is also a mean streak that comes out to play every once in a while. He isn’t afraid to scrap and he has shown a desire to stand up for his teammates. He was also 3rd on the Oiler blueline in hits per game at 2.4 (while also being a positive possession player). So we can check off the “Gritty” box for him as well.

What’s really missing from Nurse’s game up to this point is his offense. Now that’s not entirely unexpected given that he didn’t develop anything resembling impressive offensive contributions in the OHL until after his draft date. He was older and more likely to get PP time as a veteran. In the NHL PP time is the first thing to be taken away from a defender. That certainly has been the case with Nurse. He’s only played 20:46 on the PP over his first 115 NHL games. That’s only 10 seconds per game.

Nurse has produced just 8-13-21 in his first two full NHL seasons. For the majority of players who come up with that we might suggest their offense just isn’t going to develop. Nurse, though, has shown flashes of potential to go along with his physical skills. He has more puck skills than one might expect from a player with those offensive totals. If his decision-making and outlet passing catches up to his feet then he might be onto something.

Here’s the intriguing part. Nurse showed significant improvement from 2015-2016 to 2016-2017 in various statistical categories. Now, most fancy stats models are based on more than one season. So Nurse’s rookie campaign (which was abysmal in many ways) is held against him. That 1st season was indeed so bad that no matter how much improvement Nurse showed, those models still rate Nurse quite low. However, if we look at the change from year over year, we see lots of positives.

2015-2016 -> 2016-2017
P/60: 0.30 -> 0.80
CF%: 45.6% -> 51.1%
FF%: 44.6% -> 50.1%
SCF%: 45.8% -> 50.6%

This is a significant amount of improvement. Offensively, we have to remind ourselves that the totals for Nurse are affected by both a reduction in playing time and games played. He missed a huge chunk of the year injured and he was playing on the 3rd pair for most of the season. The reduction in responsibility is a huge factor (I believe) in the boost to his effectiveness. However, we shouldn’t hold that against him. All you can ask from a player is to succeed in the role you give them. Plus, going from 2LHD to 3LHD shouldn’t result in a 5% bump across the board.

The change from year 1 to year 2 for Nurse is a positive one and perhaps the biggest reason why I still think his upside can remain high. Can he continue to improve? Was last year just some good luck bound to fall back to earth? That remains to be seen, but we’ve seen with our eyes flashes of skill that should take him beyond the 3rd pair and he had a positive year by fancy stats as a sophomore.

In the context of this coming season, Nurse has an opportunity to show his stuff. There’s no question that the 2LHD spot will be gifted to Russell to start the year, but he’s ill-suited to play higher than the 6th spot as we’ve seen throughout the last season. When the 2nd pairing falters it’s a perfect opportunity for the former 7th overall pick to show that he’s capable of playing higher in the order. With Sekera injured for several months, somebody needs to step up. He should be targeting that role as camp gets set to open in a couple weeks.

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