TRAINING CAMP NEARS
Oilers, Nurse still haven’t made deal
If Darnell Nurse and the Edmonton Oilers are working on a shortterm contract before he gets a longer, richer deal, they haven’t met in the middle of that bridge yet with training camp physicals eight days away.
As Nurse skates informally with his teammates at Rogers Place this week, nothing is imminent on the contract front, according to agent Anton Thun.
“This is an organization I want to be a part of, obviously,” said Nurse, who won’t be at camp without a new deal. “Hopefully I’m out there first day.
“I’m not the only guy (as a restricted free agent) in this position. There’s (Shea) Theodore and (Josh) Morrissey still waiting, too.”
The Oilers don’t have the cap room to sign Nurse to a longterm, big-money deal like Vegas with Theodore (US$8.6 million in space) and Winnipeg ($10.2 million) with Morrissey.
This looked like boilerplate stuff with Nurse, a bridge for around $3 million a year with the Oilers unsure exactly what they have in Nurse after 197 NHL games.
Is he a tough shutdown guy or a two-way defenceman who can put up 30-35 points a season?
As we said, there’s no cap money to spend on a long-term deal, so that six-year, $29.7-million contract Noah Hanifin just got in Calgary is out the window, too.
So it’s a bridge deal like the one Winnipeg’s Jake Trouba got in 2016 (two years, $6 million).
The Oilers have the cards in their favour with Nurse coming out of his entry-level contract, so maybe they don’t want to give the 23-year-old $3 million a year, maybe they’re trying to get him for $5.5 million over two seasons.
But this is all peanuts in the big picture or it should be for a topfour defenceman.
The minute Andrej Sekera went down with his torn Achilles tendon, which not only puts this season in jeopardy, but his entire NHL career after torn knee ligaments last season, Nurse’s ask may have gone up. He ceased being a third-pairing guy with Matt Benning on paper and became a second-pairing probability.
But a player who misses any part of camp is usually not helping himself, although Trouba missed 13 games to start 2016-17 and had 33 points in 60 games when he wanted $5 million a year on a long-term deal and the Jets held firm, getting him signed a few weeks before the Dec. 1 deadline.
Trouba lost some money with his pro-rated $2.5 million the first year and $3.5 million the next, but he had his best offensive year, which is what the Oilers are looking for from Nurse to see if he’s a 30- to 35-point player with around 12 goals in him rather than last season’s six goals and 26 points.
Trouba had six goals and 21 points before getting 33 points to kick off his bridge deal. Nurse, one of the best puck-transporting defencemen in the league, a guy who can separate himself from checkers with his speed, hasn’t been used on the power play to any great extent, but he’ll have to get some work to get over 30 points this season.
“A big part of producing more is having the opportunity to be on the power play and that’s a goal,” said Nurse, who worked with skills coach Adam Oates this summer and has more to give. “It’s about reading and reacting, having more confidence in my game. I have a tool box that I haven’t really tapped into.”
What the Oilers want from Nurse is better puck awareness in the attacking end, so he becomes a valuable two-way defenceman. He admits he has lots to learn, ergo the bridge deal, although if they could get him signed for five or six years at the same $4.1 million that Oscar Klefbom and Adam Larsson are making, they would love it. But Nurse likely wants more.
And the Oilers only have $3.9 million in cap room with 22 signed players and a possible contract offer to either of their tryout players Scottie Upshall or Jason Garrison to watch out for during training camp.
ROOKIE CAMP ROSTER SET
Defenceman Ryan Mantha, who suffered a blood clot in his left eye during a game last season in Bakersfield, won’t be at rookie or main camp. The high-end prospect hasn’t been given medical clearance ... Mark Messier’s nephew Luke, who played in Detroit’s farm system last year after four years at Harvard, has a rookie camp invite with physicals and fitness testing Thursday. Luke, a forward, was at Oilers orientation camp in 2015.