This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Darnell Nurse
Edmonton Oilers Defense
One hundred and fourteen shots from beyond forty feet and three goals — the same line as his partner on the other pair.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-15 | EDM | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.0 | 17:00 |
| 2015-16 | EDM | 69 | 3 | 7 | 10 | -13 | 60 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 120 | 2.5 | 20:14 |
| 2016-17 | EDM | 44 | 5 | 6 | 11 | 0 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 85 | 5.9 | 17:01 |
| 2017-18 | EDM | 82 | 6 | 20 | 26 | +15 | 67 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 194 | 3.1 | 22:15 |
| 2018-19 | EDM | 82 | 10 | 31 | 41 | -5 | 87 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 196 | 5.1 | 23:49 |
| 2019-20 | EDM | 71 | 5 | 28 | 33 | -2 | 48 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 170 | 2.9 | 23:27 |
| 2020-21 | EDM | 56 | 16 | 20 | 36 | +27 | 57 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 154 | 10.4 | 25:38 |
| 2021-22 | EDM | 71 | 9 | 26 | 35 | +18 | 54 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 203 | 4.4 | 25:03 |
| 2022-23 | EDM | 82 | 12 | 31 | 43 | +26 | 64 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 203 | 5.9 | 23:30 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 559 | 66 | 169 | 235 | +64 | 470 | 2 | 4 | 10 | 1327 | 5.0 | 22:50 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
12 goals and 31 assists in all 82 games, plus-26, 64 penalty minutes, 23:30 a night — the heaviest workload on the club.
52.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,565 minutes, the 68th percentile, with his ice at 74-67 against an expectation of 73.56-67.33. Both ends within a goal of the chances, which across 1,565 minutes is about as clean a result as this book records.
Nine seasons, 559 games, 235 points, all in Edmonton.
The Finesse Game
203 shots at a median of 46 feet, 62 per cent from beyond forty and 11 per cent from inside twenty.
Beyond forty: 114 shots on goal, three goals, 2.63 per cent. Inside forty: 82 shots, nine goals, 10.98 per cent.
That first line is identical to Evan Bouchard’s — 114 shots, three goals, to the number — which is a coincidence and a useful one, because between them Edmonton’s two puck-moving defencemen spent 228 shots on goal from the point last season and got six.
Nine of his twelve goals came from inside forty feet on 82 attempts. 95.0 mph at the 78th percentile with 23 slap shots behind it.
The Physical Game
6-4 and 215, and this is the reason for 23 minutes a night. 64 penalty minutes in 82 games is a high rate and it is his career pattern: 87, 48, 57 and 54 minutes in the four years before it.
22.3 mph at the 51st percentile and 1.3 bursts over twenty a game at the 68th, on 3.16 miles a game at the 88th. He covers a lot of ground at ordinary speed, which is the standard first-pair shape.
He fights, he finishes checks and he clears the front of his net. Edmonton’s blue line has one man who does that and he plays 1,565 even-strength minutes.
The Intangibles
Seventh overall in 2013 out of Sault Ste. Marie, nine seasons in Edmonton, and an eight-year contract that is among the most argued-about in the league.
He is 28, played every game, took the hardest matchup and finished plus-26 with a possession share and a goal record that agree with each other. That is a good season by any reading.
His father played in the Canadian Football League and Donovan McNabb is an uncle by marriage, which is one of the more unusual sporting families in this book.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- workhorse· carries the load at even strength
19:05 a game at five-on-five, 91st percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
“He fights, he finishes checks and he clears the front of his net.”
“He fights, he finishes checks and he clears the front of his net.”
“64 penalty minutes in 82 games is a high rate and it is his career pattern”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,565 minutes
- Expected goals
- 52.2%
- 68th pct
- Shot attempts
- 51.6%
- 67th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 74 for, 67 against. Expected: 73.6 and 67.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 2 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.
Both bars are percentiles among the 638 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 69 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2022-23 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 22.3 mph
- 79th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.34 a game
- Distance
- 3.16 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 95.0 mph
- 70th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.0
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2022-23 · 1565 minutes at five-on-five
- Cody Ceci70%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2022-23
- The club
- EDM took 53.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 52.2% — 1.3 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,565 minutes at five-on-five — 99th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cody Ceci | 50.5% | 56.1% | 51.9% |
| Connor McDavid | 55.8% | 50.0% | 58.4% |
| Leon Draisaitl | 48.7% | 54.4% | 56.3% |
50.5% together, 56.1% for him apart and 51.9% for Ceci apart. He was better away from Ceci, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Ceci.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
264 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 12 of them goals. His median goal came from 32 feet. 11% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 62% from beyond forty.