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

[Sofa GM]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. By year three Nurse will be getting the Pronger treatment from Oiler fans and he'll be the most hated player in Edmonton. Until McDavid demands a trade.



With a contract this big, expectations are high that you show your elite. Nurse had an exceptional season this year, but it was a short season in a weak division. He's now a major eater of cap space and better be that reliable 25 to 30 minute per game defenseman.

Having Nurse on the ice for 25-30 mins will translate to a significant number of wins for the opposition…..fantastic

[Locke]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. By year three Nurse will be getting the Pronger treatment from Oiler fans and he'll be the most hated player in Edmonton. Until McDavid demands a trade.

With a contract this big, expectations are high that you show your elite. Nurse had an exceptional season this year, but it was a short season in a weak division. He's now a major eater of cap space and better be that reliable 25 to 30 minute per game defenseman.

Kenny, in his infinite wisdom, has accounted for this eventuality.

You see, for his skill and his contract no other team is going to want to take him.

So he is an Oiler for life. No more Schultz and Petry embarrassments!

The Edmonton Oilers are like the Soviet Union...a perpetual embarrassment obsessed with not being a perpetual embarrassment.

The eternal Lemniscate.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Especially since, I mean first of all I've spent a ton of time watching them both play... but obviously Jfresh has spent way more time that both of us combined watching them.

It's just immediately disqualifying, it'd be like going into the American politics thread in off-topic calling everyone a bunch of ####s and ranting about how Bill Gates is behind the pandemic. You're only making it clear that you shouldn't be listened to about anything.

But more importantly, saying "I think X guy is obviously better", subjectively, without any backup or justification, and declaring that therefore there's "no debate" when there very clearly is one going on right now in front of your face is just this perfectly obnoxious union of arrogance and stupidity.

I do think those charts do have limitations unless they are stripping out the impact of teammates. Does Nurse have those giant offense numbers without McDavid?

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

I know what JFresh does, I was asking who are they?

Don’t they make cheap underwear and boxers and stuff that’s sold at Target or walmart? They were in the news because one of their sweatshops collapsed or burned down a few years ago.

How they parlayed that into making WAR charts, I’m less certain of.

[ViKen]

[MOD EDIT] *Removed*

[ViKen]

Right on! Lots to get excited about for both cities. Oilers feel they got a huge bargain and he'll be super cheap but 2026. Meanwhile, us Flames don't have anyone we feel who deserves anything close to this level on contract. Could this be construed as good or bad?

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by browna

Weekes is Canadian and should rightfully know about Baby Duck.

I don't know about anybody else, but Baby Duck sounds like a great nickname for Nurse.

[dustygoon]

The hell.....

Mods must be just pouring a coffee and haven't logged on yet.

[Royle9]

How can Weeks defend the signing of Nurse when Makar who by all accounts is twice the defenseman Nurse is signed for for less $$

I cant fathom spending 9.25 x 8 on Nurse.
This gif just rotates on repeat anytime I see this thread bumped or the contract itself mentioned in the news:

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

I do think those charts do have limitations unless they are stripping out the impact of teammates. Does Nurse have those giant offense numbers without McDavid?

Not only do they account for quality of teammates, it's actually listed right on the card along with quality of competition. Short version is Nurse plays with the best players against the opposition's best players - no surprise there.

The charts do have significant limitations, though, for sure... The biggest one is that while they're expressed as percentages, the scale isn't linear. The on-ice impact difference between a player at 99% and a player at 90% is very large, while the difference between a player at 30% and one at 20% is very small.

But that's the tradeoff for having that much information in one tight, easy-to-read package. You can quickly see, "okay, this guy gets better results than 80% of players when he's on the PK". If you want to dig deeper, there's plenty of information you can look at to understand what's behind those PK results, but you'll have to get into the weeds.

He also makes good charts. Here's one showing that Ethan Bear (AKA the guy they just traded) was the only d-man they had last year to show positive results in both offence and defence and that Adam Larsson (AKA they guy they lost in free agency to Seattle) was by far their best defensive d-man:


Also, just for fun:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1424775210956468232

[Cali Panthers Fan]

^Also lost Caleb Jones for Keith, so basically, their 3 best all-around defensemen. *chuckle*

[Boreal]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

^Also lost Caleb Jones for Keith, so basically, their 3 best all-around defensemen. *chuckle*

Watch Jones and Bear become the new Petry and Schultz while they’re mystified as to why?

[The Fonz]

Is there anywhere that explains those WAR charts by JFresh?

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by The Fonz

Is there anywhere that explains those WAR charts by JFresh?

Yep - pinned at the top of his twitter account.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1420386346510737412

[Enoch Root]

Not only do they account for quality of teammates, it's actually listed right on the card along with quality of competition. Short version is Nurse plays with the best players against the opposition's best players

It states quality of competition, but that is not the same as accounting for it.

Who you play with matters a lot. Who you play against matters a lot. How you are utilized matters a lot.

And the problem with comparing players, using charts like this is that no two players are being put in the same position. Who Nurse plays with, who Nurse plays against, and how he is utilized, is completely different than who Jones (for instance) plays with, against, and how he is utilized. Even if Jones is also playing 'with the best players, against the best players'.

We get these nice charts with lots of numbers to compare - this guy is good at this but sucks at that, while that guy is better at this but worse at that - and we assume that they are comparing the same things. But they are not.

That is why we get surprises from players like Tanev when he moved to the Flames. His numbers sucked in VAN, but then they were great in CGY. Why? Is it because he suddenly figured out how to hockey? Or is it because his situation and utilization changed?

I have been arguing this for years - hockey stats are inherently flawed because who you are on the ice with, and against, is everything. It's a team game. And even though they try to account for this, they do not and cannot.

You aren't going to have good stats if your line gets its proverbial head pounded in every shift.

(none of this applies to Nurse specifically, just making a point)

[Enoch Root]

Taking that to the Flames...

Treliving is criticized for consistently signing lousy UFAs.

Last year he brought in Leivo, Simon and Nordstrom. Now, none of them are Braden Point obviously, but all 3 saw their numbers drop - not just points, but analytical numbers like these as well. Is it because they all got worse as players? Maybe. But the more plausible explanation is that the team was not playing well, and anyone that joined the team was likely to see their numbers and performance drop.

Because it is a team game

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

It states quality of competition, but that is not the same as accounting for it.
Who you play with matters a lot. Who you play against matters a lot. How you are utilized matters a lot.

It does both, though. See the explanation above - WAR factors in QOC and QOT, so those are just broken out on the card for further detail about how the player is deployed.

That is why we get surprises from players like Tanev when he moved to the Flames. His numbers sucked in VAN, but then they were great in CGY. Why? Is it because he suddenly figured out how to hockey? Or is it because his situation and utilization changed?

Well, Tanev also used to be very good at the things he was good at last year in Calgary, but had been trending downward for a few years. So the change was probably partly a matter of systems, partly a matter of random variance in a weird covid year, and partly a matter of being re-energized after joining a new team for the first time since he entered the league. That can't really be measured; look at who ROR became when he left Buffalo. But ultimately I wouldn't be very surprised to see Tanev settle in to a spot somewhere between where he was in his last year in Van and what he did last year (which was right around "best defensive defenceman in the league" territory and shouldn't be expected to happen again).

I have been arguing this for years - hockey stats are inherently flawed because who you are on the ice with, and against, is everything. It's a team game. And even though they try to account for this, they do not and cannot.

Except they can and do account for it. That's been true for years and as a result those adjustments have been refined over that time using thousands of hours of on-ice data to improve accuracy. I guess you're saying they don't account for it convincingly enough to satisfy you, but can you explain your justification for that, beyond "I'm not convinced"?

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

It does both, though. See the explanation above - WAR factors in QOC and QOT, so those are just broken out on the card for further detail about how the player is deployed.

Well, Tanev also used to be very good at the things he was good at last year in Calgary, but had been trending downward for a few years. So the change was probably partly a matter of systems, partly a matter of random variance in a weird covid year, and partly a matter of being re-energized after joining a new team for the first time since he entered the league. That can't really be measured; look at who ROR became when he left Buffalo. But ultimately I wouldn't be very surprised to see Tanev settle in to a spot somewhere between where he was in his last year in Van and what he did last year (which was right around "best defensive defenceman in the league" territory and shouldn't be expected to happen again).

Except they can and do account for it. That's been true for years and as a result those adjustments have been refined over that time using thousands of hours of on-ice data to improve accuracy. I guess you're saying they don't account for it convincingly enough to satisfy you, but can you explain your justification for that, beyond "I'm not convinced"?

You are missing the point. Two players, on different teams, will not ever be put in the same situation. Accounting for QOC still does not put them in the same situation. Player on Team A plays against top competition. Player on Team B plays against top competition. Those are not the same things. If Team A is better at defending against top competition, that will positively influence each player's numbers on Team A - even after accounting for it.

It is a team game, and you simply cannot isolate player performance like that.

As for the bold regarding Tanev and ROR, you are making my point. Situations change, and player performance changes with it. As you say, these things can't be measured. Yet, fans see these stats and conclude that this player is better than that player at X.

And it isn't just a case of "I'm not convinced", you can do better than that.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

But you just keep saying "I'm not convinced", in different words:

It is a team game, and you simply cannot isolate player performance like that.

Why not? You just keep saying "you simply can't, it's impossible". Well, these models generally try to do so, and use a lot of data to increase their accuracy. I think everyone acknowledges that it's impossible to be perfect because of factors like the ones I mentioned with Tanev, but they end up being fairly accurate. So if you're going to just say "no, not good enough, you can't do it", the burden is really on you to show that their conclusions aren't useful enough for us to rely on to compare players, even though we acknowledge that there's going to be some error.

I mean, in this thread we have Nurse at about 25% projected WAR while Jones is at 3%. 25% is about 8 times higher than 3%, but that doesn't mean Nurse is 8 times the player. It simply suggests that neither of them is worth their contract and that Nurse might be slightly more likely to be worth his. That's a fair thing to conclude based on the data. We don't need the math to be that precise to use these metrics as a helpful basis to make comparisons and predictions about the future.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

nothing but the most intelligent discourse from hockey media

https://twitter.com/user/status/1424052204747608072

Haha, good ol Kevin Weekes. The same guy that would pretend to be injured when he didn't feel like playing, and lied about being mugged at knifepoint to excuse being late for a practice