[Signing] Oilers sign Darnell Nurse to extension beginning in 2022 (8 yrs, $9.25 mil AAV)

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Nope, even after you adjust for opponents it was still better. I think Tanev was just done in Vancouver.

What does that even mean? He came to CGY and proved that he isn't done - did he suddenly become undone?

It is far more plausible that either A) the model is failing, or B) there was something else going on that the model didn't account for. Perhaps Tanev was playing injured during the season where his stats sucked (for instance)

Yes. Or at least, the guy who created the one we're talking about says he's tested it, and I don't know why he'd lie. Dom L from the Athletic runs his model thousands of times and then evaluates its performance against the results and against other models at the end of the year to determine whether or not it'd make money if you used it as a betting tool.

Pretty safe to assume he isn't lieing. But the question is: what was tested? And how was it tested? One of my contentions is that these stats take team events, and then apply the results to individuals. If the testing focuses on team success, it will probably prove to be quite reliable.

But we wan to draw conclusions about individual player performance from the model - how can we even test that? ow do we assess whether it accurately tells us that Player A is terrible defensively? Again, individual performance - especially defensively - is highly dependent on situation. That being the case, how do we extract situation effects from the data? How can that be tested? And then, do we see consistency in the results when we look at that player in a new situation? (and again, we have to then extract the new situational effects from the new data - ow the hell can we then compare that to the prior data? And how can the model test for that?

The fundamental problem is that we have to use team data, and then try to account for it. But we have no way of knowing (or by extension, testing) if our efforts to do that have been effective.

Actually, the model we're talking about has an R2 of .888, although that's at the team level. It's obviously going to be less accurate at the individual player level, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have any utility. It just means that if you use it as a predictor of next season, it's going to be close in many players' cases, a bit off on some others, and wildly incorrect on a few.

Same issue, team stats vs individual results. We have a high correlation at the team level - well yeah, because it is team data. We can assume that there will be some transference of applicability at the individual level, but we can't know how much. And when we see how much individual player's stats can vary, when they move from team to team, or up and down the lineup, it suggests not very much.

[Rising_Oil_Prices]

Originally Posted by Bingo

That's your reply?

Your homer eye test is the way we should all go over stats that prove he's a tire fire in his own zone?

I think Nurse has his qualities, don't get me wrong. He's big and can move. He's pretty good on the transition, gets pucks to the net.

But he's not a complete player as he's terrible defensively, and he's paid to be more than great in all aspects.

We are only year 7 into his career and defensemen take longer to mature. I will say if his defensive play doesn't improve, as he comes into his prime, this is probably a bad overpay by the oilers. But if you look at the trajectory of his career so far, and how D-men improve drawing closer to their 30's, I think it's a good bet. Look no further than your own, Giordano, his first 7 years were good, but he blossomed into an elite defenseman after that.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Rising_Oil_Prices

Look no further than your own, Giordano, his first 7 years were good, but he blossomed into an elite defenseman after that.

So Nurse's first 7 years have been awful, but he can blossom into… an average defenceman? Oh, goody. Just what I always wanted for $74 million.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Rising_Oil_Prices

We are only year 7 into his career and defensemen take longer to mature. I will say if his defensive play doesn't improve, as he comes into his prime, this is probably a bad overpay by the oilers. But if you look at the trajectory of his career so far, and how D-men improve drawing closer to their 30's, I think it's a good bet. Look no further than your own, Giordano, his first 7 years were good, but he blossomed into an elite defenseman after that.

Yes, there is reason to believe that his defensive game will develop. That is a very reasonable position to take because yes, defensemen typically take a long time to develop that part of their game.

But this is a thread discussing his $9.25M contract, and you came here defending it against the onslaught of criticism that it is getting. And here's the thing: this contract pays him like he IS great defensively. But he is NOT. Maybe he will be one day, we shall see. But that does not change the fact that this contract is terrible.

If you think he MAY or even WILL develop defensively, and become a #1 defenseman, then give him a shorter term, wait and see contract. The right contract, based on your views, would have been 2 or 3 years at about $6.5M. But they gave him $9.25M, based on hopes and prayers.

Regarding Giordano... he got his $6.75M contract AFTER demonstrating that he had a complete game.

[Rising_Oil_Prices]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

So Nurse's first 7 years have been awful, but he can blossom into… an average defenceman? Oh, goody. Just what I always wanted for $74 million.

He's not awful. He's a good defenseman, who can, and likely will improve play in his own end through the next few years, as well as every other part of his game. If he doesn't well then yeah, with all things being equal, I would concede its a poor contract.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Rising_Oil_Prices

He's not awful. He's a good defenseman, who can, and likely will improve play in his own end through the next few years, as well as every other part of his game. If he doesn't well then yeah, with all things being equal, I would concede its a poor contract.

Sorry, Nurse is awful at defensive play by every metric, and by the eye test of numerous professionals. He would need to be one of the best to justify his contract.

A defenceman who cannot defend is not a good defenceman.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Rising_Oil_Prices

He's not awful. He's a good defenseman, who can, and likely will improve play in his own end through the next few years, as well as every other part of his game. If he doesn't well then yeah, with all things being equal, I would concede its a poor contract.

I don't believe this is likely.

Sent from my SM-G960W using Tapatalk

[Rising_Oil_Prices]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

I don't believe this is likely.

Fair enough. I guess that's where we will have to wait and see.

[Redrum]

If he improves vastly in his own end, he might earn about half his salary. This is a great signing. It's actually so inflated I don't think it will affect other negotiations that much because you will get laughed out of the room just for bringing it up.

[GioforPM]

They should pay Monahan $9M because he’s a good goal scorer and might develop into a great play driver.

They should pay Mangiapane $10M because he may become an elite scorer with some power play time.

They should pay Gaudreau $11M because he might switch positions and become an elite centre.

[sketchyt]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

They should pay Monahan $9M because he’s a good goal scorer and might develop into a great play driver.

They should pay Mangiapane $10M because he may become an elite scorer with some power play time.

They should pay Gaudreau $11M because he might switch positions and become an elite centre.

They should pay Mike Smith $2M because he might hop into a time machine and not play like a 40 year old.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

Well, Nurse's XGA/60 numbers were middle of the pack the first year he played on the top pairing with Larsson.

The last three years his partners were Russell, Bear, and Barrie.

Russell, and Barrie in particular are beloved by the analytics community.


Why does Tanev get a rationalization and Nurse doesn't? I mean you admit yourself that XGA/60 is affected by teammates and situation. If we have to do a tonne of groundwork to explain why a stat is valid in certain cases then I don't see it as being that valid.

It's basically plus/minus at that point which has been dumped on for years.

If you're happy paying a guy $9.25M that can't rise above a defense partner, than by all means lets blame Edmonton's lack of depth on the blueline as the reason the contract is bad.

But the whole point of being the fourth highest paid defenseman in hockey is the ability to raise the level of those around you.

He certainly hasn't done that to this point, but honestly maybe it's him that's causing the issues more than anything.

But sure lets look at the numbers ...

There are 32 defense pairings in the last three years in Edmonton that had 50 or more minutes together. Nurse played on 6 of them.

His ranking in xGA60 for the Oilers are 18th, 20th, 22nd, 26th, 30th and 31st

His 31st ranking was with Larsson who you claim was a good partner for him.

Bear and Russell as a pair ... two of the three you say are pulling him down were ranked 3rd.

Barrie is a boat anchor at pairs 27, 29 and 30. Barrie and Nurse were 30th.

Sure looks like it's not the partner that Nurse is struggling with, it's the mirror.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Rising_Oil_Prices

We are only year 7 into his career and defensemen take longer to mature. I will say if his defensive play doesn't improve, as he comes into his prime, this is probably a bad overpay by the oilers. But if you look at the trajectory of his career so far, and how D-men improve drawing closer to their 30's, I think it's a good bet. Look no further than your own, Giordano, his first 7 years were good, but he blossomed into an elite defenseman after that.

So you think paying a guy to be an elite top five number one defenseman with the hopes that he becomes one some day is the way to go?

Giordano was always elite defensively ... he was a 1.9 xGA60 guy in his first five seasons in Calgary and 2.10 xGA60 in his last eight.

He didn't need to blossom.

[CaptainCrunch]

I love the whole. He's been terrible defensively for 7 years, but now that's going to miraculously turn around.

Nurse is good offensively but look at his shooting percentage in a short season last year, if anything is going to regress and regress hard its that.

Players that improve defensively have that mind set and those tools and improve their understanding of that aspect of the game. Nurse has never shown that he has that mindset, or he thinks and processes the game particularly well behind his blueline. Hey, maybe you have hope and he moves towards being average defensively, that means that likely its at the cost of his offensive game with a once in a life time shooting percentage that makes Orr look like a piker.

So he becomes average defensively and moves towards average offensively. so you have a average defensive game and a bit above average to very good offensively. Is that worth gobbling up 9.25 million per year over 8 years with a complete player controlled NMC?

Not even close.

I expect that the byline next year even by the Oilers friendly press will be "Not worth the deal". And how does Nurse react to that? Does he punch out Drai?

This contract is delicious.

With Gio, he was extremely good defensively and had to go through a prove value process of multiyears.

Nurse had a shortened season with a seriously inflated career shooting percentage and continued to be below average to poor without the puck and got the vault open. I mean sure he brings some toughness to the team with his spot picking style of enforcer where he likes to fight players that are decidedly not in his weight class, but I'm sure that's worth something right.

[Beatle17]

Originally Posted by Rising_Oil_Prices

He's not awful. He's a good defenseman, who can, and likely will improve play in his own end through the next few years, as well as every other part of his game. If he doesn't well then yeah, with all things being equal, I would concede its a poor contract.

This is nice to wish for BUT defencemen need help in their own zone they can't do it on their own. So until they take McDavid, Driasatl and Barry into the defensive zone and introduce them to the rest of the players on the team his stats are UNLIKELY to get better.

[Locke]

Its still hilarious.

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by Bingo

If you're happy paying a guy $9.25M that can't rise above a defense partner, than by all means lets blame Edmonton's lack of depth on the blueline as the reason the contract is bad.

But the whole point of being the fourth highest paid defenseman in hockey is the ability to raise the level of those around you.

He certainly hasn't done that to this point, but honestly maybe it's him that's causing the issues more than anything.

But sure lets look at the numbers ...

There are 32 defense pairings in the last three years in Edmonton that had 50 or more minutes together. Nurse played on 6 of them.

His ranking in xGA60 for the Oilers are 18th, 20th, 22nd, 26th, 30th and 31st

His 31st ranking was with Larsson who you claim was a good partner for him.

Bear and Russell as a pair ... two of the three you say are pulling him down were ranked 3rd.

Barrie is a boat anchor at pairs 27, 29 and 30. Barrie and Nurse were 30th.

Sure looks like it's not the partner that Nurse is struggling with, it's the mirror.

I don't think anyone is happy about paying Nurse over $9 million per year.

Perhaps you think the team would be better if the Oilers had kept Bear and traded Nurse?

Probably NHL GMs and coaches would think differently. They keep paying and playing guys like Morrissey, Carlson, and Rielly that have similar XgA/60 as Nurse.

We can go back and forth all day, but if you really believe Nurse's defensive ability is 3rd pairing/7th defenceman calibre and you're not just posturing, we really aren't going to make any headway.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

I don't think anyone is happy about paying Nurse over $9 million per year.

Perhaps you think the team would be better if the Oilers had kept Bear and traded Nurse?

Probably NHL GMs and coaches would think differently. They keep paying and playing guys like Morrissey, Carlson, and Rielly that have similar XgA/60 as Nurse.

We can go back and forth all day, but if you really believe Nurse's defensive ability is 3rd pairing/7th defenceman calibre and you're not just posturing, we really aren't going to make any headway.

Label however you want.

His stats are in the 155-175th range for defenseman. There are 186 dressed positions on 31 hockey teams.

He's at the 17th percentile for some metrics and the 6th percentile in xGA60, which is a key one in my mind.

Why would I need to posture with actual stats on my side?

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

I don't think anyone is happy about paying Nurse over $9 million per year.

Perhaps you think the team would be better if the Oilers had kept Bear and traded Nurse?

Probably NHL GMs and coaches would think differently. They keep paying and playing guys like Morrissey, Carlson, and Rielly that have similar XgA/60 as Nurse.

We can go back and forth all day, but if you really believe Nurse's defensive ability is 3rd pairing/7th defenceman calibre and you're not just posturing, we really aren't going to make any headway.

How about just paying Nurse what he’s worth instead of such a huge overpay.

[GhostCookie]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

How about just paying Nurse what he’s worth instead of such a huge overpay.

It's like they are selectively forgetting they had another year of control on the player. It's unlikely he plays well enough through the first half of next season to warrant this contract but if he does, then great, you award this contract. If he doesn't, then you are in a position of strength and can bargain it down to a more affordable amount.

I would be hard pressed to imagine a scenario where anything Nurse does next year makes a case for him being paid more.