Tom Gazzola joined TFP Hotstove on Sirius XM NHL Network Radio with Dennis Bernstein, Dave Pagnotta, and Ryan Paton on Saturday. There he was asked concerning the marriage between defenseman Darnell Nurse and Edmonton Oilers coming to an end.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Darnell Nurse Requests a Trade, a Cale Makar Extension, the Senators Interest in Mason McTavish
Ryan Paton: Darnell Nurse, Tom Gazzola, $9.25 million AAV UFA in 2030 contract ends 2030. He wants out. Why did it take this long? That’s my query. Because I believe that this marriage has been dissolving for quite some time now.
Tom Gazzola: “Yeah, that’s that’s a good statement. Good assessment, Ryan. I mean, the Darnell Nurse that I remember in his first few years within the league, before he got bridged a few times, after which finally got this big contract. Joyful-go-lucky, easy to seek advice from. He’ll shoot the breeze with you.
After which I believe when that deal was signed, and things didn’t go right in the primary couple of years, and the highlight was on him, the goal was on him, the fans got on him because that’s big bucks, especially in a market like this. People concentrate to all the pieces. I believe that began to weigh on him, and you possibly can see his demeanour changing in and across the locker room and on the rink, and I feel prefer it’s probably gotten to the breaking point.
Possibly it did a yr prior, but you already know he’s used tight with (Connor) McDavid and (Leon) Draisaitl and (Ryan) Nugent-Hopkins. Those guys desired to win, they usually desired to win together. And I believe after this past yr, possibly there’s a realization that it may not occur, and enough is enough. And he said, ” You recognize what, I’ll be okay with moving on.”
NHL Rumors: Dylan Larkin and Darnell Nurse
So it’s not great. I don’t like seeing a number of the vitriol spit at him, and fans could be harsh on marquee players, and there’s a great defenseman there, and is he’s a $9.25 million defenseman, AAV, probably not, but he’s serviceable when he’s dialled in, he’s effective, he got skill, skates well.
He’s still sort of within the prime of his profession, and we’ll see if Stan Bowman and Jeff Jackson can find the proper home for him and get a good return and check out to keep up some cap space, because, as has been outlined over and over over the previous few weeks, that they had potential to have plenty of cap space going into this off season and decided to make some moves that burnt it up unnecessarily.”
NHLRumors.com Note: Now that Darnell Nurse went to the team this off-season asking for a trade it can be interesting to see where he gets traded to. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet believes he desires to go East and doesn’t need to go to Toronto. The Pittsburgh Penguins and Edmonton Oilers are talking about Nurse. Could one other trade between those two teams within the work. But there may be a likelihood that Darnell Nurse could discover a recent home and be like K’Andre Miller and fit right into a recent system perfectly. However the time was right for the 2 parties to go their separate ways.
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