This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Darnell Nurse
Edmonton Oilers Defense
Thirteen goals of scoring that did not arrive on his ice, and 549 career penalty minutes.
| 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 | EDM | 81 | 10 | 22 | 32 | +3 | 79 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 181 | 5.5 | 21:54 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 640 | 76 | 191 | 267 | +67 | 549 | 3 | 5 | 12 | 1508 | 5.0 | 22:43 |
This Season So Far
The 2024-25 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
81 games, 10 goals and 22 assists for 32 points, 1 on the power play, 1 shorthanded, 79 penalty minutes, 21:54 a night and plus-3. He took 53.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,464 minutes, the 81st percentile, and his ice went 60-60 against an expectation of 73.49-63.20.
Thirteen goals of scoring that did not arrive at one end and three fewer conceded than the chances called for at the other. On a club where the first pair took a 62 per cent share, an 81st percentile is the second pair getting the rest of it.
The Finesse Game
181 shots at a median of 50 feet with 68 per cent from beyond 40, converted at 5.5 per cent. The shot gets through and does very little when it arrives.
191 career assists in 640 games. He carries the puck out of his own zone rather than passing it out, and at 6-4 with a long stride he is hard to line up while he is doing it. The decision at the far blue line is the part that has never caught up.
The Physical Game
He finishes his checks, is unpleasant along the wall at 215 pounds, and will fight anybody who asks.
79 penalty minutes in 81 games is the most on the club. He retaliates, and a good share of those minutes are the second penalty rather than the first.
The Intangibles
Seventh overall in 2013 out of Hamilton, ten seasons, 640 games, and 549 career penalty minutes. He has been asked to be a number one defenceman on a club that has had two better ones arrive since.
The contract is the thing everybody discusses and the skating is the thing that will keep him useful. At 29 the skating is still the best thing about him by a distance and the rest of it has stopped improving.
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
81 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“He carries the puck out of his own zone rather than passing it out, and at 6-4 with a long stride he is hard to line up while he is doing it.”
“He finishes his checks, is unpleasant along the wall at 215 pounds, and will fight anybody who asks.”
“He finishes his checks, is unpleasant along the wall at 215 pounds, and will fight anybody who asks.”
“He retaliates, and a good share of those minutes are the second penalty rather than the first.”
“He finishes his checks, is unpleasant along the wall at 215 pounds, and will fight anybody who asks.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,464 minutes
- Expected goals
- 53.8%
- 81st pct
- Shot attempts
- 53%
- 79th 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: 60 for, 60 against. Expected: 73.5 and 63.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 34 points above where the report does. 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. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 652 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, 2023-24 · 81 games
- Top speed
- 22.7 mph
- 86th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.16 a game
- Distance
- 2.97 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 94.9 mph
- 71st pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.7
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.2
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
2023-24 · 1464 minutes at five-on-five
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, 2023-24
- The club
- EDM took 56.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.8% — 3.1 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,464 minutes at five-on-five — 96th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cody Ceci | 52.2% | 57.7% | 51.5% |
| Evander Kane | 48.0% | 57.2% | 54.9% |
| Leon Draisaitl | 55.1% | 52.9% | 61.1% |
52.2% together, 57.7% for him apart and 51.5% 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
243 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 10 of them goals. His median goal came from 41 feet. 9% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 68% from beyond forty.