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Dallas Stars give brutally honest thoughts on Nurse slash after Edmonton Oilers shutout win

Preston Hodgkinson
Preston Hodgkinson
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May 24 2025, 12:00 pm
Dallas Stars give brutally honest thoughts on Nurse slash after Edmonton Oilers shutout win
Jerome Miron/Imagn Images

The Dallas Stars were not holding back on what they thought about Darnell Nurse following a 3-0 loss to the Edmonton Oilers in Game 2.

Scoring no goals in a critical playoff game will frustrate any NHL team, but the temperature will skyrocket even higher when you lose a star player as well. That was the case for Dallas on Friday night as Roope Hintz left the game in the third period after taking a nasty slash from Nurse in front of the Oilers’ net.

Initially, refs called Nurse for a five-minute major, but a review downgraded the call to a two-minute slashing penalty. The Finn did not return to action for the remainder of Game 2.

Stars head coach Peter DeBoer made his feelings very clear on the play with reporters after the game.

“Does anyone in this room in this room think if Connor McDavid gets carried off the ice like that, it’s not a five-minute major?” DeBoer said. “If that’s 97 carried off the ice in the same situation, I think we all know the answer to what that looks like for us.”

It wasn’t just DeBoer who was upset about the play following the loss, but a few Dallas players as well. Stars captain Jamie Benn was also asked about the play, where he echoed his coach’s sentiment on what that call would be if it were McDavid instead of Hintz.

“We didn’t like it. If that was McDavid walking down the tunnel, I would like to see the result of that,” Benn said, according to The Athletic’s Mark Lazarus. 

Mason Marchment took things a bit further with his comments, saying that Dallas will remember that play going into Sunday afternoon’s Game 3 in Edmonton. This is setting up a physical affair as the series shifts to the Alberta capital.

“There was some intent [on that slash]… that’s one of our best players and I don’t think it was enough,” Marchment said, per Mac Engel of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “A lot of that stuff, you just keep in the back of your mind, and if opportunity presents itself, then you take your chance. ”

“We’ve got a long series here.”

DeBoer did not have an update on Hintz’s condition after the game, and his status for Game 3 is unknown.

It remains to see what kind of retribution the Stars have in mind for Nurse and the Oilers. The fact of the matter is that they’ve been outplayed in five of the six periods in this series so far and are now headed on the road for the next two games.

Nurse should keep his head up, but the Oilers would be smart to let the Stars take the penalties and keep playing their game.

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