The Edmonton Oilers made a huge commitment to Darnell Nurse yesterday, signing the 26-year-old defenseman to an eight-year contract extension. The $74MM contract doesn’t even kick in until the 2022-23 season, meaning it will keep him employed until 2030. The $9.25MM cap hit is currently the fifth-highest among NHL defensemen, but the average annual value isn’t the only thing to negotiate when it comes to career-defining contracts.
The contract also includes a full no-movement clause through the 2026-27 season, and a modified no-trade clause through the final three years. Nurse will be able to submit a list of ten teams he would accept a trade to during those final few years, but that’s actually not the only protection built into the deal. For that, the full salary breakdown is needed (via CapFriendly):
- 2022-23: $12.0MM salary
- 2023-24: $10.4MM salary
- 2024-25: $12.0MM salary
- 2025-26: $10.0MM salary
- 2026-27: $2.0MM salary + $6.0MM signing bonus
- 2027-28: $1.2MM salary + $6.0MM signing bonus
- 2028-29: $1.2MM salary + $6.0MM signing bonus
- 2029-30: $1.2MM salary + $6.0MM signing bonus
The combination of a contract being front-loaded and then filled with signing bonuses creates another sort of protection for Nurse. After the halfway point, it essentially can’t be bought out. The cap savings would be negligible at that point, meaning the defenseman will almost certainly see this new deal play out regardless of how he performs down the line.
For instance, if the team tried to buy the deal out in June 2026, they would still face cap hits of $7.72MM in 2026-27 and $8.52MM in each of the next three years. As it gets closer to the end of the term, the cap savings would be even less. That means if things go sour, Edmonton would need to pull the trigger early to get any real relief, like the Minnesota Wild recently did with Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, but that would still result in some painful cap penalties without a player to show for it.
This isn’t the first time the league has seen contracts structured in a way to prevent buyouts. In the summer of 2016, just a few days after free agency opened, PHR published a piece examining how Loui Eriksson’s deal (and several others signed that day) was essentially buyout-proof. As we enter the final season of that six-year, $36MM deal, Eriksson is still technically active but was scratched for basically the entire 2020-21 campaign. He played just seven games for the Vancouver Canucks this year and has just 14 points over the past two seasons. Despite his obvious struggles, there wasn’t a way to clear his contract off the books–at least not without trading him.
Edmonton could now face that same situation if Nurse’s play declines a few years from now. It’s a gamble, an especially risky one to take a year out from Nurse reaching unrestricted free agency. In 2022-23, the Oilers’ defenseman will be earning the same amount of money as Connor McDavid, whose eight-year, $100MM contract was only slightly front-loaded. The team is making a huge investment in the short term, hoping to find some success in the postseason.
This is a terrible contract, Ken Holland is a joke
how on earth do all 32 teams make the same mistakes every offseason?
@DarkSide830 – According to the best-seller, “Quantum Physics for Hockey Fans”, most of the GMs in the league are too close to the event horizon of the Supermassive Black Hole at the center of the Galaxy, and are experiencing catastrophic drops in IQ points as they start getting sucked into the abyss. The good news is that there should be a boatload of job openings soon…
Further to your point when one of said GMs completely crosses the event horizon. The super massive blackhole begins to eject massive amounts of gamma radiation and charged assistant GM and coaching particles at extreme velocity into the vast vaccum of space.
**vacuum…. G Dammit.
@brucebochyisthemarlboroman – Be careful! You don’t want to get that junk on you – it won’t wash off! :)
It’s almost like a competion between owners to see who can hand out the most player friendly contract each off-season.
Every time I see a new eight-year deal, I just start laughing.
This is a crazy contract. He is being paid like a top 5 dman and he clearly isn’t. The oilers wil regret this just like the Hyman contract.
I love Nurse. He is a stud. I was even ok with the overpay. But totally buyout proof? Ken what are you doing? Do you have a crystal ball? Man alive! He is seriously banking on Nurse playing better and better and staying healthy.
“Buyout proof” here, in my view, says Darnell wants to stay for the long haul, good or bad. And, get paid handsomely. He’s taken bridge deals to try to help the team’s bottom line. His game has improved, and it will have to get much better, much faster. No Klefbom or Larsson to learn from, and it’s hard to say whether Keith can be a big influence for Nurse. If Darnell is paired with Barrie, it could get ugly and force him into a more defense-first mentality, to cover for Barrie’s inevitable blunders. That spells “stress.” More than a few talking heads on GTA-based shows seem to believe EDM may be forced into ’80s-style 8-7 games most nights, due to their view of a suspect D-core. I hope the broadcast teams don’t have to resort to “rough shift” too often, for their own sanity.
Or maybe he’s not worried as he knows he won’t be around when this contract and Hyman’s start to look really bad!
Haha so true eh! It won’t be his cap hell to get out of
Haha, still have no goalie that will take them to the promised land.
this is a wing and a prayer that McDavid sticks around (long term-ish) since he & Darnell are tight… nice gamble Kenny.. (cough)
What, for pity’s sake, was Holland’s incentive to AGREE to this? Nurse was just compensated like a Norris winner after the first season in his career he even got Norris VOTES.
I’m wondering whether a lot of GMs are just surrendering to “Meh, I’ll be fired long before this contract’s up anyway” thinking.
Good for Nurse, he was able to parlay one very good season against inferior competition (the Canadian Division was weaker than average) into an incredible contract creating generational wealth regardless of what he does from here. We should all be so lucky!
I don’t buy the weaker division nonsense. Toronto is a perennial playoff team in any division, the Oilers are basically a playoff team though they probably aren’t contenders. The Jets are a playoff team and Montreal was in the finals. I think that’s foolish to say inferior competition there are at least 4 teams in contention for the playoffs in a regular year and all of these players are NHL caliber. Don’t buy it!
Uh, the Nurse contract is the same set up as the Seth Jones and Dougie Hamilton contracts signed before it. I guess Holland should have avoided paying market rates. Because, you know, the geniuses on the internet could have.
Also, the Canucks did trade the Eriksson contract. It’s not clear the writer is aware of this.
Ken, is that you?
Hello, friendly neighborhood writer here.
The Jones extension and Hamilton contract are not quite set up in the same way, which is why Nurse was the focus of this piece. Hamilton’s deal is actually middle-loaded, with him earning just $6.3MM in each of the first two years. There is quite a bit of cap savings that could be had, depending on when a buyout occurs.
For Jones, it is a similar structure but not nearly as unbalanced. If, for instance, the Blackhawks chose to buy him out in 2026, they would get $2.1MM in savings the first season, then $1.625MM each of the next three years.
A more apt comparison would be Zach Werenski’s deal, which has a similar front-loaded+late signing bonuses, but it’s only for six years and he’s nearly three years younger than Nurse, so didn’t seem like a fit for this subject.
Also, I am aware the Canucks traded Eriksson. Not exactly sure what suggests I’m not, but here’s the piece from that move! link to prohockeyrumors.com
Psh, Gavin with his “facts” and “reality!” Can’t you see that Ducey is the smartest person here and they clearly see the irony of trying to disparage those who question a professional for doing his job and then turns around and does that to someone else on their own website. Only a genius would do that!
Uh, Nurse couldn’t carry Hamilton’s jock strap to the laundromat. Jones is also terribly overrated.
Hamilton is so overrated it isn’t funny. Softest big man in the league. The only thing going for him defensively is his reach. He just stands still and flails his stick around hoping it makes contact with the puck. And for what reason is he already on his 4th team? Guy tends to not be very popular on his teams.