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Morrissey Contract Should Be Good News For Oilers

September 16, 2018, 6:27 PM ET [35 Comments]
Sean Maloughney
Edmonton Oilers Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT

The Winnipeg Jets just came to an agreement with restricted free agent Josh Morrissey. A 2 year bridge deal at 3.15 million dollars per year. Morrissey was the last signing on the Jets list and he will now join the team for training camp.

Now enough about the Jets:

This deal should be good news for Oilers fans as it provides a strong argument for a similar deal being given to Darnell Nurse. Here are Morrisey's numbers since entering the NHL.



And here are the numbers from Nurse:



At first glance these are two players with nearly identical stats. Nurse has one more goal in his career while Morrissey has one more in total points. Overall what makes Morrissey's numbers more impressive is the fact that he has achieved these results over two fully healthy seasons while Nurse's numbers have come over three years while missing time to injury.

As always there is much more to players than their base points so here are a few more factoids for the readers to consider.

One reason I have always been bullish on Nurse's potential is the fact that almost all of his production has come at even strength. Over the 2017/2018 season Nurse had a career high 26 points. All 6 goals and 20 assists came at EV. On the PP Nurse averaged less than 30 seconds a game. making his lack of PP production unsurprising.

Nurse ranked 2nd in terms of total ice time last season, averaging 22:15 a game, just shy of Klefbom's leading 22:50. Over the course of last season Nurse was arguably the Oilers most counted on defender, especially with the time Klefbom lost to injury.

In contrast Morrissey... is again almost identical to Nurse. Morrissey as well scored 26 points. His 7 goals all came at even strength as did 18 of his 19 assists. Morrissey has one PP assist, averaging even less than Nurse at 18 seconds per game.

Morrissey ranked third among Jets defensemen, behind Trouba and Byfuglien at 20:26. There are plenty of comparables to draw between these two 23 year old defenders and logic dictates we see Nurse signed at a similar deal.

Of course then there are tweets like this.




I fully agree with Dusty that this is what the Nurse camp values Nurse at, however the actual amount he should get should be considerably lower. I cannot find an example of a player similar to Darnell Nurse who was paid anything more than 3.2 on a bridge deal at this stage in their career.

Another similar player Shea Theodore is also waiting to be signed. Theodore also has 46 points in his NHL career though he has done so in the fewest number of games (114). It is also worth noting Theodore also receives more PP minutes and much more of his production has occurred on the PP.

Hopefully Morrissey is the beginning of the signing dominoes which will result in Nurse taking a two year deal in the 3 million to 3.3 million dollar range. The Oilers pairings on defense are looking worse than mediocre without Nurse right now. Get it done.
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