Darnell Nurse wasn’t the only player on the Edmonton Oilers who started Tuesday’s first period against the Utah Mammoth poorly. However, his errors were noticeable, and he was the only Oilers player to be sent an ice-time message to start the second.
As the Oilers came out to rally back from a 2-0 deficit in the second period on Tuesday night, Nurse wasn’t there to help the team battle even things up. Head coach Kris Knoblauch sat the defenseman for the first seven minutes of the middle frame, waiting until the Oilers had tied the game before giving him another shift.
Nurse had previously fumbled the puck in the first, leading to a goal against. TSN’s Ryan Rishaug posted during the intermission, “2 major mistakes from Nurse in that period led to goals. Third straight game, Oilers down 2-0, 4th in a row they’ve given up the first goal. This team hates October.”
Nurse took a lot more heat online from fans after the first, many citing the same argument they often use: that he’s overpaid and underdelivering.
The Oilers talked about needing a wake-up call and a “kick in the butt” after 16 turnovers on the rush to start Tuesday’s game. Everyone got the memo, but Nurse was made an example of. He played only 16:49 in that game, down nearly four minutes from his league average of 20:42 per game. He finished the game a plus/minus-1 and was one of the few Oilers’ defensemen to have no points.
“Work Boots” And A Big 2nd Period Push Lift Oilers Over Mammoth
An intermission kick in the butt sparked a five-goal second-period outburst en route to a dominant win.
Nurse vs. Bouchard Treatment
The decision to bench Nurse is an interesting one, given that Evan Bouchard has also had early-season struggles but been allowed to work himself out of them. The coach has put Bouchard right back out after egregious mistakes, a luxury Nurse wasn’t afforded. Even Mattias Ekholm told us after the game that he hasn’t liked much about his own game over the past five or six outings. “Everybody felt enough was enough,” Ekholm said. “It was coming to a point where we needed to start putting our work boots on… We found our game, and that’s gotta be the standard going forward.”
One has to wonder whether this signals a shift in the coach’s philosophy or simply reflects a different set of expectations for how Knoblauch views Nurse. Bouchard is consistently a catalyst on offense for Edmonton; Nurse has the ability to be, but often isn’t.
Will the Oilers start treating more stars the way they reacted to Nurse’s first period? Or is Nurse’s situation an isolated matter that the coaching staff had finally seen enough of?
As a $9.25 million defenseman and a key piece of the Oilers blue line corps, Nurse needs to find his game. Many suggest he’s trying to do too much and when he handles only what is in his control and plays the way he can play when he’s not overthinking things, he’s a much more effective player.
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