Darnell Nurse landed the big one on Friday, signing an eight-year contract worth $74 million ($9.25 million cap hit), to start in 2022-23. Nurse is now 26, so this contract will expire when he is 35. Like many long-term deals, it may not look pretty at the end. But Nurse is a critical part of the Oilers defense, leading all of their blueliners with 25:38 of icetime in 2020-21. Only Drew Doughty, Thomas Chabot, and Brent Burns averaged more icetime overall than Nurse.

I'm not sure how much this factored into his new contract, but Nurse's goal total certainly helped his fantasy stock in 2020-21. Only Jakob Chychrun scored more goals than Nurse's 16, a career high for the career Oiler. Nurse finished fourth in shots among defensemen, which factored into that total. Shooting percentage also helped boost that total, as Jonas Brodin, Aaron Ekblad, Shayne Gostisbehere, and Alec Martinez were the only defensemen with a shooting percentage higher than Nurse's 10.4% (minimum 35 games). Don't bet on an improvement in this category, at least not on a goals-per-game basis.

Even if the goal total declines, Nurse is still a must-own in multicategory league. I mentioned the shots on goal earlier. He finished with a plus-27, second on the team and a number that you can also debate. Nurse is especially valuable in leagues that count hits, as no defenseman who had a higher hits total than Nurse (117) scored more points. As well, his 100 blocked shots was within the top 20. As long as he's receiving the icetime, Nurse should continue to pile up the counting stats.

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Nurse wasn't the only defenseman to sign an eight-year contract on Friday. As you might expect from Lou Lamoriello, the Islanders have been secretive about their offseason plans, but they did announce that Adam Pelech has agreed to an eight-year extension worth $5.75 million per season. Pelech isn't really an option in fantasy leagues, either by scoring numbers (14 points in 56 games) or by peripherals (under 100 hits and 100 blocked shots). However, his ability as a shutdown defenseman earns him this contract in real-life.

Adam Pelech, signed 8x$5.75M by NYI, is one of the league's top shutdown defencemen who is more responsible than anyone else for the Isles' analytical glowup since the 2020 bubble. #Isles pic.twitter.com/ghSDuCqqbA

— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) August 6, 2021

The only other fantasy-relevant statement I can make is that Pelech's signing should continue to benefit whoever is between the pipes for the Islanders, whether that be Semyon Varlamov or Ilya Sorokin.

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A few other signings on Friday:

The Blackhawks signed Brandon Hagel to a three-year contract with a cap hit of $1.5 million. Hagel finished his rookie season with a respectable 24 points in 52 games, which was within the top 10 among rookies.

The Kraken avoided arbitration with Vince Dunn, signing him to a two-year, $8 million contract. An offensive-minded defenseman who has nearly reached the half-point-per-game mark in two of his last three seasons, Dunn should compete for power-play minutes on the brand-new team.

Seattle also signed Marcus Johansson to a one-year contract worth $1.5 million. In his only season with the Wild, Johansson scored 14 points in 36 games. Center was the most difficult position for the Kraken to fill in the expansion draft, so Johansson should bring some much-needed experience while competing for a spot in the top 9. Due to declining point totals over the last three seasons, he wouldn't really be on my sleeper watch for this team the way someone like a Jared McCann or a Yanni Gourde would.

The Ducks signed Isac Lunderstrom and Sam Steel to one-year, two-way contracts.  

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Perhaps the best free agent of the rest, Tomas Tatar signed with the Devils for two years at $4.5 million per season. Mike took care of the Fantasy Take on this one.

It seemed strange that Tatar, the Habs' leading scorer in 2019-20, was a healthy scratch for much of the playoffs. But when you get on a roll like Montreal did during the playoffs, you don't mess with a winning lineup.

Whether Tatar will bounce back to some extent is up for debate. Either way, the Devils might have checked more boxes than any other team with their offseason improvements. Not one, but two top-four defensemen? Dougie Hamilton and Ryan Graves. Another goalie to support the overworked Mackenzie Blackwood? Jonathan Bernier. High first-round pick? Luke Hughes. And now a potential top-6 forward in Tatar. If Jack Hughes takes another step forward, this team could make some noise for a playoff spot. They are at least hoping these upgrades will work out better than the ones from 2019 (P.K. Subban, Nikita Gusev, Wayne Simmonds).

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Let's say you have a draft tomorrow and you had to rank goalies in a redraft (non-keeper) league. Chances are you'd rank Andrei Vasilevskiy first, based on his high win total and stellar ratios from last season. Then who would your number two goalie be? I'm not going to try to answer that today, but if you like you can provide your answer in the comments below or on Twitter. Your feedback can go a long way on how the Top 100 Roto Rankings appear for August.

With goalies being most impacted by the team they play for, today and tomorrow I will focus again on goalies on new teams and how their rankings within the top 100 could be affected. Today's goalie is Marc-Andre Fleury.

In case there was any worry about Fleury retiring after a somewhat unexpected trade to the Blackhawks, he has confirmed that he will honor the final year of his contract and play for the team that acquired him. On the surface, this would seem like a move that would downgrade for the Vezina Trophy winner, as he moves from an elite team to one that is probably on the bubble to make the playoffs. Yet is Fleury still worth drafting in the top 100?

Fantasy Take: Fleury Shipped to Chicago

The Hawks have at least taken steps to improve their defense, adding Seth Jones and (to a lesser extent financially) Jake McCabe. That should probably improve Chicago's 3.29 GA/GP number, which was the seventh-worst in the league in 2020-21. The upgrades in both goal and defense should help in that area, while at the same time the Hawks hold their own offensively as a middle-of-the-pack team. That should provide some reason for optimism, which they will need in a tough Central Division.

Fleury's preseason value has been very difficult to track the past two seasons. Entering the 2019-20 season as the unquestioned number one, Fleury was able to pile up his share of wins in spite of spotty play at times, which led to a minus-7.09 GSAA (goals saved above average) and 49% quality start percentage. That resulted in the Golden Knights adding Robin Lehner at the deadline. By the playoffs, it seemed as though Fleury's future was elsewhere, especially with the infamous portrait on Allan Walsh's Twitter account. The following season when Lehner was expected to be the starter, he got injured and Fleury ran with the ball, posting a 19.99 GSAA and 72.2 QUAL% on his way to the Vezina.

Overall, Fleury's value is hurt with the trade, considering the unknowns of both the Blackhawks and Fleury himself. His value will fall on the top 100 rankings, but he won't fall out of the top 100 completely. We are talking about the defending Vezina Trophy winner here, so there is still corresponding value here until we witness a decline in play. I'm probably not drafting him as a top-5 goalie, though. Ironically enough, he probably wouldn't have been worthy of that spot anyway with Lehner likely to take on a higher volume of starts (health permitting) than he had in 2020-21.

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Finally, I'll step away from hockey to discuss another sport. If you're from north of the border, no doubt the sporting highlight of the day was Canada's gold medal in women's soccer at the Olympics. I can't help but think that the rivalry between Canada's and the US's women's teams seems very similar in both hockey and soccer. Fierce battles in the past between two of the world's best teams. As a Canadian, which team do I love to see Canada beat the most in both women's hockey and women's soccer? The US, of course.

Penalty kicks remind too many hockey fans of the dreaded shootout, but you can't argue with the drama in Canada's win. A win against Sweden – another hockey superpower! Congrats to the ladies.

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For more fantasy hockey discussion, or to reach out to me, you can follow me on Twitter@Ian_Gooding