Darnell Nurse has every tool available to him to become a solid top 4 defender in the NHL. He’s a 6’4” 215 pound, lean, hyper-athletic defender who can skate and possesses a mean streak to go with it. He can transport the puck better than he can distribute it at this point in his career, but he shows flashes of offensive talent via puck skills that make you dream about what he can do when he puts it all together.

But will he?

Will he put it all together or will he be a player with all the tools and no box to put them in? These players exist in every sport. They arrive to the big leagues on talent and instinct but somehow remain less than the sum of their parts. Darnell Nurse has all the right attributes. You can create a check list of all the individual parts of a solid to great defender and he’s right there until you get to the part where you wrap them all up.

Nurse, today, is still very much a work in progress with loads of untapped potential. He’s come off just his 2nd NHL campaign and yet he’s only played 115 games (plus 13 in the playoffs). That’s really not a lot of information to go on and he wasn’t handled particularly well in year 1 (by necessity, not by choice). Still, he exists somewhere between an upper limit that looks very high and a lower limit that is concerning. The comparable that I keep coming back to in Darnell Nurse’s “Worst Case Scenario” pathway of development is Jack Johnson.

Like Nurse, Johnson was a high draft pick (3rd overall vs Nurse’s 7th overall) and every scouting service in the world gushed about his physical tools. He was big, he could skate, he had a shot, he liked to hit…sound familiar? The problem with Johnson is that despite all those attributes his teams got out-shot, out-chanced, and out-scored consistently when he was on the ice. Johnson has played 10 seasons in the NHL and all of them in the advanced stats era. He has had a positive goal and unblocked shot attempt differential just one time. Despite the obvious concerns about his overall effectiveness he earned a 7 year deal that he signed in 2010, well before he had actually shown a single positive year in any differential.

Johnson was the classic case where the eye test showed a solid defender but the results were empty. When I think about where Nurse might go in his development, that’s where I fear it takes him. He’s going to play for a long time barring injury. His skating and toughness alone will guarantee that. Throw in his willingness to carry the puck and you’ve got an NHL career for sure. But will he be effective? Will all those things turn into positive results for his team? That’s the real question.

I wanted to compare Nurse to Johnson a little more and, as it turns out, there are plenty of similarities past the obvious high draft position and physical skill set. The parallels also branch into the way they were used year over year and their impact on various underlying metrics. There are also some differences that lend themselves to giving a little hope for Oilers fans hoping Nurse can develop into something more.

Both Johnson and Nurse broke into the NHL after 2 extra development years post-draft day. While Nurse was in the CHL track, Johnson went to the University of Michigan. They both made the NHL full-time at the age of 20 and both of them struggled greatly but were given plenty of ice-time.

20 year old Johnson in 2007-2008 played 74 games for the Kings logging 21:41 a night and picking up 3-8-11 along the way. At 5v5 he produced 0.53 P/60 (6th of 6 King defenders with 200 minutes 5v5). He had a brutal 40.8% CF (Also 6 of 6) and a shockingly bad -7.0 CF%Rel (again dead last on his club). Similarly he had a 39.8% FF (last on his blueline) and a brutal -8.1 FF%Rel. It was, by every imaginable measurement, a disaster.

20 year old Nurse in 2015-2016 played 69 games for the Oilers logging 20:13 a night and picking up 3-7-10 along the way. At 5v5 he produced 0.31 P/60 (9th of 10 Oiler defenders). He had a terrible 45.5% CF (10th of the 10 defenders) and a nasty -4.8 CF%Rel (dead last on the blueline). Not unexpected, he had a 44.4% FF (yup, last) and an awful -5.7 FF%Rel (last again!). Like Johnson, it was a difficult campaign all around for Nurse. Most recognized that he was pressed too high in the order due to injuries and wasn’t yet up to the task.

21 year old Johnson in 2008-2009 played 41 games for the Kings logging 20:16 per night and he picked up 6-5-11 that season. His offense dipped at 5v5 play to 0.37 P/60 (7th of 9 King rearguards). His struggles in shot attempt metrics remained unchanged as he recorded a 43.9% CF (last on his blueline) and -8.2 CF%Rel (dead last and even worse than the year before). Again, his unblocked attempts remained a nightmare too at 43.2% FF (9 of 9) and compared to his own teammates he remained a disaster at -9.0 FF%Rel (dead last in the NHL, 236 of 236). The Kings had walked his ice time back a little, but the push was still on for Johnson and he was not delivering.

21 year old Nurse in 2016-2017 played 44 games for the Oilers logging just 17:01 per game and he picked 5-6-11 (eerily similar to Johnson). However, at 5v5 he produced 0.81 P/60 (3rd of 7 Oiler defenders). Unlike Johnson he was a 51.0% CF (3rd of 7) and had a positive 0.8 CF%Rel (3rd again). He was a break even 50.0% FF (which ranks 6 of 7 on the Oilers) which means he was a smallish negative of -1.2 FF%Rel (6th once more). The Oilers did a solid job of keeping Nurse down in the order last year. He played the vast majority of his minutes on what was clearly the 3rd pairing and I think it was beneficial for him.

This past season is the one that gives me hope for Darnell Nurse. Yes, he was playing sheltered minutes, but he performed pretty well under those conditions and I don’t think it’s fair to fault a player for usage. All you can ask is that they raise the bar to that level and it’s difficult to conclude that Nurse failed in his role last year. He showed the offensive ability and puck carrying skills he will need to use in order to be successful. The next step for him is to push beyond the 3rd pair and show he can be a positive impact in the top 4. Barring that, he can stay on the 3rd and absolutely slay.

In Johnson’s 3rd NHL season at age 22 he went on to play 22:36 a night and picked up 36 points. His 5v5 offense bloomed to a little lower than what Nurse produced at 21 on a per 60 basis (0.77 P/60 for Johnson), but he got plenty of PP time which boosted the offense. There was indeed an improvement in the shot attempt metrics, but he still remained at or near the bottom of his team in rank.

In some cases “development” just doesn’t fix deficiencies in a player’s game. For Jack Johnson they remained there despite years of experience and a complete tool-set. We don’t yet know which direction Nurse is going to break. His per 60 offense came a little quicker than Johnson’s did and his overall shot attempts were better last year than Johnson has EVER been, but he still ranked poorly in unblocked attempts.

Nurse has everything you want. He’s so close. I think we’ll find out at the end of this coming season whether the sky is still the limit for Nurse or if we have to resign ourselves to having a player that just might not be able to put it all together.

Follow me on Twitter @Archaeologuy

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