It came out nearly a month ago that defenceman Darnell Nurse had asked the Edmonton Oilers for a trade. Nothing happened for a few weeks, but then he expanded the teams where he was willing to accept a trade, and the deal finally came to fruition as Ryan Rishaug initially reported that Nurse was sent to the San Jose Sharks for defencemen Shakir Mukhamadullin and Zack Sharp.

Nurse will turn 32 years old in February and per PuckPedia, he has four years left on his current contract at $9.25M per season. That gives him the 11^th highest cap hit among all defencemen in the league. He is coming off his lowest point production in any season where he's played at least 70 games with 24 points in 82 appearances last year. He does stay healthy, though, as he's missed just 18 games over the last nine seasons, and just seven over the last four.

Let's break it down.

What San Jose Gets

The issue with Nurse isn't necessarily his play. Until his down year in 2025-26, he had consistently performed as a second-pair defenceman, whether we look at Evolving Hockey's Goals Above Replacement measure or Hockey Viz's Synthetic Goals measure. This isn't a case where he's given a lot of minutes and we're unsure if he even belongs in the NHL. If he rebounds from his 2025-26 performance to the level he's spent for most of his career, he's a huge upgrade over what the Sharks typically had among their depth defencemen.

That isn't conjecture, either. If we look at some of the tracking data over the last two years from All Three Zones and compare Nurse to Mario Ferraro, Nurse was much better at contributing to scoring chances in the offensive zone, failed to exit the defensive zone much less often, and got out of the defensive zone with possession at a much higher rate:

It isn't that the Sharks added a superstar defenceman. It is that the Sharks added an above-average defenceman who should be able to out-perform a lot of the guys who are no longer there like Ferraro, Vincent Desharnais, and Nick Leddy.

The question is whether Nurse rebounds. Using those same measures from Evolving Hockey and Hockey Viz, his last two years were his worst two years of his last four years, and since the start of the 2017-18 campaign, he is third in the league in minutes played. As mentioned earlier, he will turn 32 years old in February and, including postseason appearances, is pushing 900 NHL games. He is not a young blue liner, and the age-related decline for a physical defenceman with good-not-great puck skills is a real concern.

The good news for his fantasy value is he should see a bigger role with the Sharks than he had with the Oilers. He fell under 21 minutes a game last season, and with a top-pair role while being featured on the penalty kill, he should exceed 21 minutes and land in the 22- to 23-minute range. For a guy whose fantasy value is derived from peripherals, that should help his shot, hit, and block totals.

Additionally, Nurse wasn't always on the ice with Connor McDavid. Per Natural Stat Trick, Nurse spent less than 21% of his 5-on-5 time across the last two seasons with McDavid on the ice. If he's on the top pair in San Jose, Nurse should get a lot of time with Celebrini. He won't get power-play time, but he wasn't getting much lately in Edmonton, either, so it's status quo there.

This is a case where it's an upgrade for both the Sharks and Nurse. San Jose gets an upgrade over the players they let walk, and Nurse should get an ice-time increase and share the ice plenty with Celebrini. Setting aside the contract – and salary cap managers will have a decision to make there – this is a win all around.

San Jose's young defencemen just got a kick in the teeth. The trades for Michael Kesselring and Nurse, as well as the signing of Jacob Trouba, means that, along with Dmitry Orlov, their top two pairs are locked up. That means third-pair duties for Sam Dickinson and Luca Cagnoni, and that's presuming the team doesn't make any more additions to the blue line because each of Dickinson, Cagnoni, and Mattias Havelid can be sent to the AHL without waivers. The latter two, and Hävelid especially, are much more likely than Dickinson.

Back in Edmonton, this is great news for Jake Walman. He seems locked in as the #3 defenceman now, and if he assumes the role Nurse had, that adds a couple of minutes per game to his profile. Mukhamadullin should also get a crack at a regular turn in the Edmonton lineup, though in a third-pair role.

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