Nurse signs with Oilers, and actually does them a solid
Complain all you want about Darnell Nurse's eight-year, $74 million contract extension with Edmonton, but given the market, he probably could have demanded even more
For those of you who believe the Edmonton Oilers overpaid Darnell Nurse by giving him an eight-year contract extension worth $74 million, you’re entitled to that opinion. And you might be right. It’s a lot of money over a long term and it’s a contract that makes it all but impossible for the Oilers to buy him out in the latter years. There are certainly a lot of people on social media who believe the Oilers will regret this contract.
But it also might be a good time to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, in the Oilers’ last game of the playoffs, a triple overtime loss that eliminated them in four straight games, Nurse played a mind-boggling total of 62 minutes and seven seconds, which is almost 13 minutes more than the next highest player on either team. It might also be a good time to remind you that he finished second in the NHL with 16 goals and was fourth in ice time at 25:38 per game – and of the top five minute munchers in the NHL this past season, he was the only one who was a plus player. You might also want to remember that the Oilers defense corps will be without Oscar Klefbom and Adam Larsson next season.
You might also want to be aware that Seth Jones, who had a subpar season in 2020-21 and is only four months older than Nurse, recently signed an eight-year extension for $9.5 million a year with the Chicago Blackhawks. Jones’ former team, the Columbus Blue Jackets, overpaid Zach Werenski with a six-year deal at $9.58 million a season. Dougie Hamilton and Cale Makar each check in at $9 million starting next season. All those deals were signed recently. Nurse was originally only looking for a four-year extension that would take him to unrestricted free agency at the age of 31 - and coincide with the end of his good buddy Connor McDavid’s deal- but saw what he could get on a long-term deal when his comparables signed. He had huge negotiating power.
“Numbers came out and guys were signing deals,” Nurse said. “It put me in the position (to sign the deal).”
The market was pretty well set. And if Nurse, knowing the Oilers could not lose him, had demanded $9.75 million so that he could have the highest cap hit among those players, he probably could have received it. Or he could have had another big year, waited for next summer and held the Oilers hostage with the prospect of walking away as an unrestricted free agent. Discuss among yourselves whether a 27-year-old will be worth $9.25 million per season on an eight-year deal, but given the circumstances, Nurse did the Oilers a solid.
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He clearly believes the Oilers have a chance to win a Stanley Cup, and the Oilers believe they can do so with him as the lynchpin of their defense corps. By demanding $500,000 less than he could have on the extension, Nurse is doing his part and being a typical hockey player. Connor McDavid, who is the most grossly underpaid player in the NHL – there, I said it – did the same thing.
“I think he’s a top-of-the-league defenseman,” Oilers GM Ken Holland said of Nurse. “He eats up a lot of minutes, he plays against the other teams’ best players. He’s committed to the gym all-year round. He’s committed to being in Edmonton for the next nine years. He wants to finish his career in Edmonton and he wants to help the Oilers have success.”
What we do know about the deal is that it kicks in after the 2021-22 season. He’ll be paid $12 million in the first and third years of the deal, $10.4 million in Year 2 and $10 million in Year 4. He makes $8 million in Year 5 and $7.2 million in each of the final three years of the deal. He has a full no-move clause in each of the first six years of the contract and a modified no-trade clause in the final two, during which he must submit a 10-team no-trade list.
But now here is where Nurse’s contract gets interesting. There is no signing bonus in the first four years of the deal, but he will receive $6 million in signing bonuses in each of the final four years of the deal. But unlike the majority of NHL deals where players receive their full signing bonus total July 1, Nurse’s is actually spread out and isn’t paid until well into the season. In the seasons he receives a signing bonus, Nurse will receive $2 million on Nov. 15, $2 million on Dec. 15 and $2 million on Feb. 15.
This serves several purposes for both the player and the team. For the player, it still protects him against being bought out because he would receive that money even if that were the case. And it helps the Oilers in that they don’t have to cut a massive check July 1 for four straight years. By the time they start paying Nurse, they’ll have long received their revenues from season tickets, sponsorship and TV deals. So from a cash-flow standpoint, it works for the Oilers.
It should not come as a surprise if more of these types of deals start popping up. First, with so much to make up in revenues from the pandemic, teams may want to structure deals so that huge gobs of cash aren’t going out the door on the same day.
But there is also a benefit to the player. The way standard player contracts are currently worded, if a player receives his signing bonus money all at once, then decides to withhold his services for any reason, it has to be paid back to the team. So, for instance, let’s say a player receives a $5 million signing bonus on July 1. About 50 percent goes to taxes, so he’s left with $2.5 million. What if, for some reason, the player has a dispute with the coach or GM and wants to withhold his services. Let’s say he sits out the rest of that season. Well, that means he’d have to pay back $2.5 million to the team for missing half of the season, and it would be up to him to recoup his share of the $2.5 million that went to taxes.
That’s not to say that Nurse would do that to the Oilers, but by having the signing bonus payable during the season, it basically eliminates that scenario as a possibility.
Make no mistake, this is a really good deal for Nurse. It is both front-loaded and has buyout protection in the final years. As long as Nurse plays like a $9.25 million-a-year defenseman, this contract will look great. But if his play drops off significantly, yeah, it could get a little ugly. But until the Oilers start winning, they’re not exactly the destination of choice for free agents and given what Nurse has accomplished and the blows the Oilers’ blueline has suffered, he could have demanded even more.