Brian Lawton on Nurse’s New Deal: “I would rather go short term, to be honest with you.”

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Cult of Hockey

Edmonton Oilers need to be careful to avoid a Karlsson/Doughty overpay with Darnell Nurse, NHL insider suggests

NHL insider Brian Lawton, a former NHL player agent and ex-GM of the Tampa Bay Lightning, set out his idea of how the Edmonton Oilers might best negotiate with Darnell Nurse, 26, suggesting the Oilers might well be best going shorter-term with the big and dynamic d-man.
- As for a longer term deal, he said: “With Darnell, if you can somehow give him longer term, and I mean eight years, and buy down his AAV (Average Annual Value) with what they have going on, the totality of it, if you believe in this team that would be a really prudent decision. If that number is going to be like Dougie Hamilton’s number, though, I would rather go short term, to be honest with you.”
But for Oilers GM Ken Holland it’s a difficult challenge to figure out how much higher Nurse can raise his game, Lawton said. “If you’re going to hit anything with a 9 in it, you’re going to expect even more performance than he’s given — and his performance has been really good.”
- “You look at the contracts of Karlsson and Doughty — who have been great players in this league but aren’t now — and they’re a little bit gross for some of those teams. And I don’t mean gross as in they are bad people or anything like that. I mean in the expenditure, strictly intangible of a fungible object. It doesn’t feel great for those clubs, and that’s what you have to be careful with.”
Lawton’s suggestion of $50 million over eight years is $6.25 million over eight years. That would be a team friendly contract, to say the least.
There are 15 NHL d-men signed for at least $8.0 million per, all of them on long-term deals, with five of those deals freshly-inked. Of the 10 others, five of them already represent overpays, the contracts for Karlsson, Doughty, P.K. Subban, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Jacob Trouba.
The Top 7 in Norris Trophy voting were Fox, Cale Markar, Hedman, Dougie Hamilton, Charlie McAvoy, Shea Theodore and Darnell Nurse, with Letang 9th, Toews 11th, Carlson 12th, and Burns receiving no votes. Funny thing? Just one of the d-men ranked in the Top 10 here are earning more than $8.0 million per season.
I wouldn’t bet against Nurse, not based on his excellent track record. Will he be a $9.0 million per year player on an eight-year contract? That is asking a lot of any player, even those headed to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

BLH’s Thoughts: I can see the pros and cons of doing a short-term or a long-term deal with Nurse, but my whole thing with his next deal is that $9M is a shit ton of money for a guy who’s never put up 60pts in a given season. There’s no way he should be getting pooled in with the Hamiltons, Makars, and Pietrangelos because he doesn’t bring their level of offense nor do the Oilers expect him to with the re-signing of Tyson Barrie and with Evan Bouchard coming along.

Oil on Whyte (Jimmy Lynch)

Oilers: Three Reasons The Zach Hyman Signing Was The Right Call

Gives Connor McDavid His Top Linemate

This just gives the team another top-six forward to work with. Before this, the team really only had three top-six guys and then a couple of 20 something-year-olds to try and mix in with the bunch. Now while they still will be doing that with the third guy on each line, they will be a little better off.

The Team Did Not Have To Give Anything Up

Acquiring players in free agency is nice because it doesn’t send a draft pick the other way or any other type of asset. The team signed a nice addition to the top six and all it cost them was maybe a few too many years on the deal.

Stability For Years To Come

The Edmonton Oilers are buying into a championship soon. They wouldn’t have signed Hyman if they did not think they were going for it now. Yes, the price is high and the term is not fun to look at. But if the team tried signing Hyman for just three years they probably would have been paying into the 6 or 7 million dollar mark to get him under contract. At least with the deal that is now in place, they can also afford to sign another player or get right under the salary cap.

BLH’s Thoughts: In theory, Hyman should grow into the club’s “heart and soul” player IF he can manage to stay healthy for the majority of his contract and seeing as he’s a right-shot playing on the left-wing, that really allows Dave Tippett a ridiculous amount of roster flexibility going forward.

The question I have is, what do the futures of Kailer Yamamoto and Jesse Puljujarvi look like?…

NHLRumors.com

Craig Morgan of AZ Coyotes Insider: Multiple sources have said that Phil Kessel‘s camp may have requested a trade before the start of next season. There was some thought that the Arizona Coyotes could hold on to him and then trade him at the NHL trade deadline.

Joe Smith of The Athletic: (mailbag) It’s hard to see the Tampa Bay Lightning being able to re-sign the 30-year old Ondrej Palat when his contract expires after this season. He has a year left at $5.3 million. He may not get that much on the open market, but he’d have to be willing to give the Lightning a huge deal for him to return.

Vincent Mercogliano of Lohud.com: Sources seem to think, as is, that the New York Rangers are a better team now than they were before their flurry of moves. That included trading Pavel Buchnevich and acquiring a bunch of depth — including Barclay Goodrow, Sammy Blais, and Ryan Reaves.

So, if New York does not make a deal for Jack Eichel or someone else, the Rangers, according to some, have upgraded. New York is slotting players up the lineup to help new coach Gerrard Gallant define what he has and does not.

Beer League Heroes