Yahoo Sports Will the Darnell Nurse Injury Be a Wakeup Call for the Oilers?
Dan Hamilton-Imagn Images
Darnell Nurse is set to return soon after he was taken out of action thanks to a huge hit from Ryan Reaves on Nov. 16. In the few games he missed, the Edmonton Oilers may have learned they aren't equipped to handle someone of his importance going down.
Ryan Reaves receives a 5-minute match penalty for this hit on Darnell Nurse. pic.twitter.com/hVZN9FJpRY
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) November 17, 2024
Nurse has been polarizing for fans, simply because he's overpaid for what he delivers — strong, but inconsistent play. However, since he was knocked out of the lineup, the inability of the remaining defensemen on this Oilers team has had a spotlight shined on them.
The Oilers were building momentum before Nurse went down, and while it’s not quite time to sound the alarm, the team’s defensive structure is trending in the wrong direction.
Evan Bouchard has struggled, scoring one of the goals of the year versus the Ottawa Senators, but also getting walked in back-to-back games. He's made several defensive gaffes, lacked urgency, intensity and struggled to get the puck through on offense.
Meanwhile, Mattias Ekholm has been asked to take on too much. Typically the Oilers' most reliable defenseman, he played 26:46 against the Minnesota Wild and made uncharacteristic errors.
After Thursday night's loss to the Wild, Jason Gregor of Sports 1440 tweeted, "Ekholm and Bouchard each with four giveaways. The rest of the team has seven. Only the second game since joining the Oilers, Ekholm has had four GvA in one game. Rare off night with puck for him."
Brett Kulak has played extremely well, but there is only so much a career third-pairing defenseman can do.
Troy Stecher, Travis Dermott, Ty Emberson and Josh Brown aren't equipped to step up in a more elevated role.
Oilers Need to Find Another Defenseman
Even with Nurse in the lineup, the Oilers' weakness was their blue-line depth. After losing Philip Broberg and Vincent Desharnais this offseason, the team chose to trade Cody Ceci for salary cap reasons. Edmonton didn't replace the bodies that went out with the same level of experience.
Despite, missing another legitimate top-four defender, the Oilers chose to address goal-scoring at forward. Notwithstanding that the gamble hasn't yet paid off, it's becoming clear an upgrade on defense is still needed, now more than ever.
Oilers Now host Bob Stauffer reports that the Oilers are looking around the trade market. In a tweet on Wednesday, he opened up about what he believes the team’s most logical addition will be and was adamant that they will eventually make a deal.
“FWIW. IMO the @EdmontonOilers most logical addition via trade at some point will be a puck-moving 2nd pairing D with a little term left. Doesn’t necessarily need to be a right shot, but the player needs to be comfortable playing the right side.”
This might be a hint that GM Stan Bowman has begun to understand that right-shot versus left-shot might not be as important as simply having depth. Names like Ivan Provorov, Marcus Pettersson and others are being linked in rumors.
Did the Nurse injury spark management to have more intense trade conversations? The increased speculation can't be a coincidence.
Get the latest news and trending stories right to your inbox by subscribing to The Hockey News newsletter here. And share your thoughts by commenting below the article on THN.com or by visiting our forum.
