This is the Darnell Nurse WOWY (oh HOW I miss that website) early in his NHL rookie season. It shows the young man playing with a lefty blue (Andrej Sekera) and posting close to 50 percent possession while getting caved in actual goal share at five-on-five. Nurse is a target of fans, such a target that it’s kind of impossible to talk about him. Nurse has passed into the “don’t talk about religion and sex” region of Oilers discussions, which is too bad. If I say “Nurse was poor last year” there’s applause, it I say “but the Oilers badly need him” there are boos and someone, from the back, yelling “trade his ass” even though he has a full no movement clause. So, what can one do?

DARNELL NURSE

In the last five seasons versus elites, and in about 2400 minutes five-on-five, Darnell Nurse’s goal share is 52.8 percent, 102-91. Your response is ‘he played with McDavid in those years’ and that is value. Away from McDavid in those years, he delivered 43.5 percent goal share (44-57 goals). While with the captain, Nurse ran 58-34, 63 percent.

Nurse’s numbers in those five years away from McDavid bunched together don’t tell the whole story. Here is the breakdown by year:

• 2019-20: 9-7, 56 percent
• 2020-21: 4-11, 27 percent
• 2021-22: 10-8, 56 percent
• 2022-23: 13-13, 50 percent
• 2023-24: 8-18, 31 percent

In breaking things out this way, we can identify two seasons that are outliers, and that implies injury or some other element in a player’s game. Right? If he gathered 56 percent solo in two of the first three years and 27 percent in the other, it’s the Sesame Street ‘one of these things is not like the other’ right? So last year Nurse didn’t have success and the playoffs were even more dire. He. was. hurt. Doesn’t matter, people are angry and when we get angry the brain part is secondary.

I am not enamored with Oilers management and coaching currently. They have returned to the hell bent ‘moar big’ model that led to a stampede of Coke machines entering the organization twenty years ago. Kris Knoblauch may get his ass kicked in the first 10 games like Jay Woodcroft did last year, but this time the underlying numbers won’t be encouraging (as they were in 2023-24).

That said, I’m thrilled the team is taking its time with Nurse’s deployment. Bring him along at pace and return him to the 2022-23 levels and maybe more. It’s the right thing to do. I’m even confident that Ty Emberson will have a positive impact on the team, although we simply don’t know if it will be next to Nurse on the second pairing.

We get early indications about coaches and management, and reading the tea leaves currently I’m wondering if Kris Knoblauch has complete roster control. If the coach wants to win early, then we’re going to see Noah Philp at No. 4 center opening night, and we’re going to see Brett Kulak lined up with one of Troy Stecher or Travis Dermott. If moar big rules the day, then the team will suffer. I do not object to big, rugged players, in fact all things being equal I prefer them.

These big, rugged players have to contribute to outscoring. No exceptions.

When a team does things for reasons other than winning hockey games, then you need to find a hobby. Do the laundry. Collect stamps. Go to the library. Raise money so kids can have computers and access to learning. The club will eventually figure it out, you don’t owe it to anyone to sit and endure misery.

The Oilers defense has been ponderous in the preseason and I’m confident there is going to be some uneasiness at the beginning of the regular-season schedule. The lack of urgency in getting down to six men and true on the blue (which I hate) and slow-playing Nurse because of the injury (which I freaking love) has us here. I don’t normally do this before the Game 1 post, but here you go:

WHAT TO EXPECT IN OCTOBER

• At home to: WPG, CHI, CAL, PHI (Expected 3-1-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
• On the road to: NAS, DAL (Expected 0-1-1) (Actual 0-0-0)
• At home to: CAR, PIT (Expected 1-1-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
• On the road to: DET, CBJ, NAS (Expected 1-1-1) (Actual 0-0-0)
• Overall expected result: 5-4-2, 12 points in 11 games
• Actual October results:
• Oilers in 2024-25:

It should be far better, but the Oilers are going to be defensively chaotic coming out of the gate. They just are. The only way to avoid it is to play the hell out of Ekholm-Bouchard, like 30 minutes a night. I feel badly for Kris Knoblauch. He deserves a better defense. The expectations of this team are glorious, but the defense is not set after the top pairing. The Nurse handling has been pristine, but the rest is a dog’s breakfast and I don’t think Scotty freaking Bowman could untangle this mess before opening night.

Friday is always a blast, so much happening in sports and the weekend is straight ahead. We’ll kickstart the proceeding at noon on the Lowdown, Sports 1440, sports1440.ca; iHeartRadio; Radioplayer Canada, we tweet out the show after it’s done and you can catch us on Apple and Spotify. Steve Lansky will join us today, as will Tyler Yaremchuk from Daily Faceoff. I’d stick close to the Al Gore this weekend, Stan Bowman is an active GM and he may well want to do something in the next couple of days. I’m at Lowetide on twitter, in the comments section here and on the Sports 1440 text line at 1.833.401.1440 directly.