Darnell Nurse’s Edmonton run had its share of loud criticism, but it also delivered a long list of moments the Oilers won’t forget anytime soon.
Now that Edmonton is set to face Nurse for the first time since he was traded to the San Jose Sharks last summer, the 12-year Oiler deserves a look back through the lens of the biggest plays, the heaviest minutes and the flashes that made him such a notable figure in the franchise’s recent era.
Drafted seventh overall in the 2013 NHL Entry Draft, Nurse grew into a legitimate top-pairing defenceman and eventually became the player Edmonton leaned on when the blue line was stretched thin after Oscar Klefbom’s career ended because of injury. After a strong shortened 2021 season in which he finished second in goals by a defenceman, he signed an eight-year, $74 million contract the following August. The $9.25 million cap hit that came with it made him one of the most divisive names in Oilers history, but the contract did not erase what he gave the team.
He played 798 games for Edmonton and another 100 in the playoffs, piling up 324 points and 729 PIMs while regularly standing up for teammates. He was nominated for the King Clancy Memorial Trophy four times from 2022 through 2025 and was a finalist twice, in 2022 and 2023, for his work in the community and his efforts to help marginalized children through after-school and sports programming. He also finished seventh in Norris Trophy voting in 2021.
One of the earliest moments that stuck came in February 2016, during his rookie season, when he flattened Max McCormick in Ottawa. The five-foot-eleven McCormick taking on Nurse was a strange choice, and the fight became even more memorable because Nurse’s parents were in the building. His mother, Cathy, who played university basketball at McMaster, and his father, former CFL receiver Richard, watched from the stands, and Richard’s reaction - Coors Light in hand - went viral as he pumped his fist and yelled “beat his ass!”
Another signature Nurse moment came in the 2021 North Division first-round series against Winnipeg, when he turned into a one-man logging crew. Through the first four games of that playoff series, he set a franchise record with 154:36 of ice time, then pushed that total even further in Game 4 with 62:07.
It remains the third-most ice time ever in a Stanley Cup Playoff game, just behind Seth Jones at 65:06 and Sergei Zubov at 63:51, both of whom played in five-overtime games. Nurse might have broken the mark if that night had gone longer.
Tyson Barrie’s 49:15 was the next-highest total for an Oilers defenceman in the game, which tells the story of how heavily Edmonton leaned on Nurse. And after that marathon, he still rushed back to Edmonton to see the birth of his first son, Aiden, the next morning.
He also had a hand in one of the defining comeback wins of the Connor McDavid era. In Game 5 of the playoff Battle of Alberta, Edmonton trailed 2-0 in Calgary and looked headed toward a Game 6.
Nurse changed the tone with a point blast past Jacob Markstrom, pulling the Oilers back into it after Leon Draisaitl set him up. Jesse Puljujarvi tied the game soon after, and the teams then set an NHL record for the fastest four goals in a playoff game, scored in 71 seconds.
McDavid finished the job in overtime, Edmonton eliminated Calgary, and the Oilers reached their first Western Conference Final since 2006.
Nurse was also part of Edmonton’s push to break through in the 2024 Stanley Cup Final. Down 3-0 to Florida entering Game 4 on June 15, 2024, the Oilers exploded out of the gate and built a 3-1 lead in the first period.
McDavid’s first career SCF goal made it 4-1 early in the second, and then he drove the Panthers back with speed before dropping the puck to Nurse, who scored his first goal of that playoff run and chased Sergei Bobrovsky from the net. The goal that made it 5-1 sent Rogers Place into a frenzy and gave Edmonton the kind of cushion that helped it survive that night, win again in Sunrise three nights later and force a Game 7 after dragging the Panthers back to Alberta.
Almost a year later, on June 12, 2025, Nurse was right back in the middle of another Game 4 rescue act in the Final. Edmonton entered the night down 2-1 in the series and buried 3-0 after the first period, but a Ryan Nugent-Hopkins power-play goal gave the group some life early in the second.
Then Nurse took over on a grinding shift in the offensive zone, taking a pass from Mattias Ekholm on the left-wing boards and beating Bobrovsky short side to make it 3-2 at 12:47. Just over two minutes later, he stayed on the attack, carrying the puck down the left side after a faceoff win, circling the net and finding Vasily Podkolzin in front to tie it.
Edmonton later grabbed a 4-3 lead on a Jake Walman blast before Florida tied it again, and Leon Draisaitl won it in overtime to send the series back to Edmonton tied 2-2.
For all the debate around him, those were the kinds of shifts that defined Nurse in Edmonton: heavy, relentless and impossible to ignore.
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