Eddie Olczyk rips into Oilers defenceman Nurse after horrendous pinch
Due in large part to his $9.25 million cap hit, Darnell Nurse is a very polarizing player amongst the Edmonton Oilers fan base.
To Nurse’s credit, he has had a strong season overall, though he is still prone to some lapses that defencemen making the money he does should not be making.
Many fans’ frustrations also come from the belief that Oilers media haven’t been as critical of the 29-year-old as they should have been during his struggles. Those that fall into that category got their wish last night, as TNT’s Eddie Olczyk didn’t hold back on Nurse’s struggles in the Oilers’ 5-0 loss to the Dallas Stars.
It was an ugly game for Nurse, who made several mistakes at extremely inopportune times. The most blatant of the night came with less than four minutes left in the second period, where he made a baffling decision to pinch during the dying seconds of a power play in an attempt to keep the puck in the Stars’ end. He had no one covering for him, resulting in a Stars four-on-one rush, which Wyatt Johnston scored on.
Eddie O calls it like he sees it … not a huge fan of the pinch by Darnell Nurse #LetsGoOilers | #TexasHockey pic.twitter.com/ukqhpctZth
— Missin Curfew (@MissinCurfew) April 4, 2024
“You have to understand what the situation is, and it’s Darnell Nurse again,” said Olczyk, who was already highly critical of Nurse several other times in the period. “You know the penalties expiring. He runs down, and all of a sudden you’ve got Dallas Stars coming out of the penalty box, coming out of the defensive zone. That can’t happen!”
That goal opened the floodgates, as the Stars scored two more shortly after to head into the second intermission with a 5-0 lead. Nurse finished the night with a plus/minus of -3 in just 16:27 minutes of ice time. His ice time wasn’t the result of a benching, but an ill-advised 10-minute misconduct in the first period after arguing an interference penalty called against him.
It certainly wasn’t a banner night for Nurse, though to his defence, very few of his teammates showed up to play. They will all need to be much better if this team is to go on a Stanley Cup run, which their fan base is dying to see.
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